The small bachelor

THE SMALL BACHELOR

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE LITTLE NUGGET

UNEASY MONEY

SOMETHING FRESH

THE MAN UPSTAIRS

THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
BILL THE CONQUEROR

SAM THE SUDDEN

GOOD MORNING, BILLI

DOCTOR SALLY

THE
SMALL BACHELOR

P. G. WODEHOUSE

FIFTH EDITION

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published. . ° . °
Second and Cheaper Edition . F ° °
Third Edition (Cheap Form) . é ° °
Fourth Edstion (Cheap For) . ; . .
Fujth Edsiion (Cheap Form) . “ ‘ °

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

Ap.il 28th 1927

July r928

july zm928

July 3930
193%

THE SMALL BACHELOR

CHAPTER ONE

§ 1
HE roof of the Sheridan Apartment House, near
Washington Square, New York. Let us examine
it. There will be stirring happenings on this roof
fn due season, and it is as well to know the ground.
The Sheridan stands in the heart of New York’s Bohe-
mian and artistic quarter. If you threw a brick from any
of its windows, you would be certain to brain some rising
young interior decorator, some Vorticist sculptor or a
writer of revolutionary vers lsbre. And avery good thing,
too. Its roof, cosy, compact and ten stories above the
street, is flat, paved with tiles and surrounded by a low
wall, jutting up at one end of which is an iron structure—
the fire-escape. Climbing down this, should the emergency
occur, you would find yourself in the open-air premises
of the Purple Chicken restaurant—one of those numerous
oases in this great city where, in spite of the law of Pro-
hibition, you can still, so the cognoscents whisper, ‘ always
get it if they know you.’ A useful thing to remember.
On the other side of the roof, opposite the fire-escape,
stands what is technically known as a ‘small bachelor
apartment, penthouse style.’ It is a white-walled, red-
tiled bungalow, and the small bachelor who owns it is a
very estimable young man named George Finch, originally
from East Gilead, Idaho, but now, owing to a substantial
legacy from an uncle, a unit of New York’s Latin Quarter.
For George, no longer being obliged to earn a living, has
given his suppressed desires play by coming to the metro-
polis and trying his hand at painting. From boyhood
1

2 THE SMALL BACHELOR

up he had always wanted to be an artist: and now he
is an artist: and, what is more, probably the worst artist
who ever put brush to canvas.

For the rest, that large round thing that looks like a
captive balloon is the water-tank. That small oblong
thing that looks like a summer-house is George Finch’s
outdoor sleeping-porch. Those things that look like
potted shrubs are potted shrubs. That stoutish man
sweeping with a broom is George’s valet, cook, and man-
of-all-work, Mullett.

And this imposing figure with the square chin and the
horn-rimmed spectacles which, as he comes out from the
door leading to the stairs, flash like jewels in the sun, 1s
no less a person than J. Hamilton Beamish, author of the
famous Beamish Booklets (‘Read Them And Make The
World Your Oyster’) which have done so much to teach
the populace of the United States observation, perception,
judgment, initiative, will-power, decision, business acumen,
resourcefulness, organization, directive ability, self-confi-
dence, driving-power, originality—and, in fact, practically
everything else from Poultry-Farming to Poetry.

The first emotion which any student of the Booklets
would have felt on seeing his mentor in the flesh—apart
from that natural awe which falls upon us when we behold
the great—would probably have been surprise at finding
him so young. Hamilton Beamish was still in the early
thirties. But the brain of Genius ripens quickly: and
those who had the privilege of acquaintance with Mr.
Beamish at the beginning of his career say that he knew
everything there was to be known—or behaved as if he did
—at the age of ten.

Hamilton Beamish’s first act on reaching the roof of
the Sheridan was to draw several deep breaths—through
the nose, of course. Then, adjusting his glasses, he cast
a flashing glance at Mullett: and, having inspected him
for a moment, pursed his lips and shook his head.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 8

** All wrong!’ he said.

The words, delivered at a distance of two feet in the
man’s immediate rear, were spoken in the sharp, resonant
voice of one who Gets Things Done—which, in its essen-
tials, is rather like the note of a seal barking for fish. The
result was that Mullett, who was highly strung, sprang
some eighteen inches into the air and swallowed his chewing-
gum. Owing to that great thinker’s practice of wearing
No-Jar Rubber Soles (‘ They Save The Spine’), he had
had no warning of Mr. Beamish’s approach.

‘‘ All wrong !’’ repeated Mr. Beamish.

And when Hamilton Beamish said ‘ All wrong!’ it
meant ‘ All wrong!’ He was a man who thought clearly
and judged boldly, without hedging or vacillation. He
called a Ford a Ford.

““Wrong, sir? ’’ faltered Mullett, when, realizing that
there had been no bomb-outrage after all, he was able to
speak.

“Wrong. Inefficient. Too much waste motion. From
the muscular exertion which you are using on that broom
you are obtaining a bare sixty-three or sixty-four per cent.
of result-value. Correct this. Adjust your methods.
Have you seen a policeman about here ?”’

“‘A policeman, sir? ”’

Hamilton Beamish clicked his tongue in annoyance,
It was waste motion, but even efficiency experts have their
feelings.

“A policeman. I said a policeman and I meant a
policeman,”

“Were you expecting one, sir?”

““T was and am.”

Mullett cleared his throat.

“* Would he be wanting anything, sir ? ’’ he asked a little
nervously.

““He wants to become a poet. And I am going to
make him one.”’

“A poet, sir?”

“Why not? I could make a poet out of far less pro-

y THE SMALL BACHELOR

mising material. I could make a poet out of two sticks
and a piece of orange-peel, if they studied my booklet
carefully. This fellow wrote to me, explaining his cir-
cumstances and expressing a wish to develop his higher
self, and I became interested in his case and am giving
him special tuition. He is coming up here to-day to look
at the view and write a description of it in his own words.
This I shall correct and criticize. A simple exercise in
elementary composition.’’

‘*T see, sir.”

‘**He is ten minutes late, I trust he has some satis-
factory explanation. Meanwhile, where is Mr. Finch?
I would like to speak to him.”

‘* Mr. Finch is out, sir.”’

*‘He always seems to be out nowadays. When do
you expect him back?”

‘‘T don’t know, sir. It all depends on the young
lady.”’

“Mr. Finch has gone out with a young lady ?”

‘‘No, sir. Just gone to look at one.”

** To look at one ?”’ The author of the Booklets clicked
his tongue once more. ‘‘ You are drivelling, Mullett.
Never drivel—it is dissipation of energy.”

“It’s quite true, Mr. Beamish. He has never spoken
to this young lady—only looked at her.”

** Explain yourself.’

‘Well, sir, it’s like this. I’d noticed for some time
past that Mr. Finch had been getting what you might
call choosey about his clothes. ...

‘*‘ What do you mean, choosey ? se

** Particular, sir.”’

**Then say particular, Mullett. Avoid jargon. Strive
for the Word Beautiful. Read my booklet on ‘ Pure
English.’ Well? ”’

‘‘ Particular about his clothes, sir, I noticed Mr. Finch
had been getting. Twice he had started out in the
blue with the invisible pink twill and then suddenly
stopped at the door of the elevator and gone back and

THE SMALL BACHELOR 5

changed into the dove-grey. And his ties, Mr. Beamish,
There was no satisfying him. So I said to myself ‘ Hot
dog | a 39d

** You said what ? ”’

** Hot dog, Mr. Beamish.”

** And why did you use this revolting expression ? ”

‘** What I meant was, sir, that I reckoned I knew what
was at the bottom of all this.”’

** And were you right in this reckoning ? ”

A coy look came into Mullett’s face.

“Yes, sir. You see, Mr. Finch’s behaviour having
aroused my curiosity, I took the liberty of following him
one afternoon. I followed him to Seventy-Ninth Street,
East, Mr. Beamish.”

‘“* And then? ”’

** He walked up and down outside one of those big houses
there, and presently a young lady came out. Mr. Finch
looked at her, and she passed by. Then Mr. Finch looked
after her and sighedandcameaway. Thenext afternoon!
again took the liberty of following him, and the same thing
happened. Only this time the young lady was coming
in from a ride in the Park. Mr. Finch looked at her, and
she passed into the house. Mr. Finch then remained
staring at the house for so long that I was obliged to go
and leave him at it, having the dinner to prepare. And
what I meant, sir, when I said that the duration of Mr.
Finch’s absence depended on the young lady was that he
stops longer when she comes in than when she goes out.
He might be back at any minute, or he might not be back
till dinner-time.”’

Hamilton Beamish frowned thoughtfully.

**T don’t like this, Mullett.”’

**No, sir? ”’

*‘ It sounds like love at first sight.”

** Yes, sir.”

‘‘ Have you read my booklet on ‘ The Marriage Sane’? ””

“* Well, sir, what with one thing and another and being
very busy about the house. . .”

6 THE SMALL BACHELOR

**In that booklet I argue very strongly against love
at first sight.”

‘*Do you, indeed, sir? ”’

‘*I expose it for the mere delirious folly it is, The
mating of the sexes should be a reasoned process, ruled
by the intellect. What sort of a young lady is this young
lady ? fF

‘‘ Very attractive, sir.’’

‘*Tall? Short? Large? Small?”

‘Small, sir. Small and roly-poly.”

Hamilton Beamish shuddered violently.

‘‘ Don’t use that nauseating adjective! Are you trying
to convey the idea that she is short and stout ? ”’

‘Oh, no, sir, not stout. Just nice and plump. What
I should describe as cuddly.”

**Mullett,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, ‘‘ you will not, in
my presence and while I have my strength, describe any
of God’s creatures as cuddly. Where you picked it up
I cannot say, but you have the most abhorrent vocabulary
I have ever encountered. ... What's the matter?”

The valet was looking past him with an expression of
deep concern.

‘Why are you making faces, Mullett? ’’ Hamilton
Beamish turned. ‘* Ah, Garroway,”’ he said, “‘ there you
are at last. You should have been here ten minutes ago.”’

A policeman had come out on to the roof.

§2

The policeman touched his cap. He was a long, stringy
policeman, who flowed out of his uniform at odd spots,
as if Nature, setting out to make a constable, had had a
good deal of material left over which she had not liked to
throw away but hardly seemed able to fit neatly into the
general scheme. He had large, knobby wrists of a gera-
nium hue and just that extra four or five inches of neck
which disqualify a man for high honours in a beauty com-
petition. His eyes were mild and blue, and from certain
angles he seemed all Adam's apple.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 7

‘“‘I must apologize for being late, Mr. Beamish,’’ he
said. ‘I was detained at the station-house.’’ He looked
at Mullett uncertainly. ‘‘I think I have met this gentle-
man before ?”’

‘‘ No, you haven't,” said Mullett quickly.

“Your face seems very familiar.”

‘* Never seen me in your life.”

*‘Come this way, Garroway,” said Hamilton Beamish,
interrupting curtly. ‘‘We cannot waste time in idle
chatter.” He led the officer to the edge of the roof and
swept his hand round in a broad gesture. ‘‘ Now, tell me.
What do you see? ”’

The policeman’s eye sought the depths.

‘‘That’s the Purple Chicken down there,” he said.
‘* One of these days that joint will get pinched.”

“* Garroway |”

e¢ Sir ? a9

‘‘For some little time I have been endeavouring to
instruct you in the principles of pure English. My efforts
seem to have been wasted.’’

The policeman blushed.

** I beg your pardon, Mr. Beamish. One keeps slipping
into it. It’s the effect of mixing with the boys—with my
colleagues—at the station-house. They are very lax in
their speech. What I meant was that in the near future
there was likely to be a raid conducted on the premises
of the Purple Chicken, sir. It has been drawn to our
attention that the Purple Chicken, defying the Eighteenth
Amendment, still purveys alcoholic liquors.”

‘‘ Never mind the Purple Chicken. I brought you up
here to see what you could do in the way of a word-picture
of the view. The first thing a poet needs is to develop
his powers of observation. How does it strike you?”

The policeman gazed mildly at the horizon. His eye
flitted from the roof-tops of the city, spreading away in the
distance, to the waters of the Hudson, glittering in the
sun. He shifted his Adam’s apple up and down two or
three times, as one in deep thought.

8 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘It looks very pretty, sir,” he said at length.

‘Pretty? ’’ Hamilton Beamish’s eyes flashed. You
would never have thought, to look at him, that the J.
{n his name stood for James and that there had once been
people who had called him Jimmy. “It isn’t pretty at
all,’’

‘*No, sir? ”

“It’s stark.”

** Stark, sir? ”’

“‘Stark and grim. It makes your heart ache, You
think of all the sorrow and sordid gloom which those roofs
conceal, and your heart bleeds. I may as well tell you,
here and now, that if you are going about the place think-
ing things pretty, you will never make a modern poet.
Be poignant, man, be poignant!”

‘Yes, sir. I will, indeed, sir.”’

*‘ Well, take your note-book and jot down a description
of what you see. I must go down to my apartment and
attend to one or two things. Look me up to-morrow.”

“Yes, sir. Excuse me, sir, but who is that gentleman
over there, sweeping with the broom? His face seemed
so very familiar.”’

‘* His name is Mullett. He works for my friend, George
Finch. But never mind about Mullett. Stick to your
work. Concentrate! Concentrate! ”’

‘Yes, sir. Most certainly, Mr. Beamish.”

He looked with dog-like devotion at the thinker: then,
licking the point of his pencil, bent himself to his task.

Hamilton Beamish turned on his No-Jar rubber heel
and passed through the door to the stairs.

§3
Following his departure, silence reigned for some minutes
on the roof of the Sheridan. Mullett resumed his sweeping,
and Officer Garroway scribbled industriously in his note-
book. But after about a quarter of an hour, feeling appar-
ently that he had observed all there was to observe, he
put book and pencil away in the recesses of his uniform and,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 9

approaching Mullett, subjected him to a mild but penetra-
ting scrutiny.

‘‘T feel convinced, Mr, Mullett,” he said, ‘‘ that I have
seen your face before.”’

‘** And I say you haven’t,”’ said the valet testily.

‘* Perhaps you have a brother, Mr. Mullett, who resembles
you?”

“Dozens, And even mother couldn’t tell us apart.”

The policeman sighed.

*‘ Tam an orphan,” he said, ‘‘ without brothers or sisters.”

** Too bad.”

“Stark,” agreed the policeman. ‘‘ Very stark and
poignant. You don’t think I could have seen a photo-
graph of you anywhere, Mr. Mullett ?’”’

‘** Haven’t been taken for years.”

**Strange!’’ said Officer Garroway meditatively.
** Somehow—I cannot tell why—I seem to associate your
face with a photograph.”

*‘ Not your busy day, this, is it? ’’ said Mullett.

‘**T am off duty at the moment. I seem to see a photo-
graph—several photographs—in some sort of collection...”

There could be no doubt by now that Mullett had begun
to find the conversation difficult. He looked like a man
who has a favourite aunt in Poughkeepsie, and is worried
about her asthma. He was turning to go, when there came
out on to the roof from the door leading to the stairs a
young man in a suit of dove-grey.

“Mullett !’’ he called.

The other hurried gratefully towards him, leaving the
officer staring pensively at his spacious feet.

“Yes, Mr. Finch?”

It is impossible for an historian with a nice sense of
values not to recognize the entry of George Finch, fol-
lowing immediately after that of J. Hamilton Beamish,
as an anti-climax. Mr. Beamish filled the eye. An aura
of authority went before him as the pillar of fire went
before the Israelites in the desert. When you met J.
Hamilton Beamish, something like a steam-hammer

10 THE SMALL BACHELOR

seemed to hit your consciousness and stun it long before
he came within speaking-distance. In the case of George
Finch nothing of this kind happened.

George looked what he was, a nice young smal] bachelor,
of the type you see bobbing about the place on every side.
One glance at him was enough to tell you that he had never
written a Booklet and never would write a Booklet. In
figure he was slim and slight: as to the face, pleasant
and undistinguished. He had brown eyes which in certain
circumstances could look like those of a stricken sheep:

and his hair was of a light chestnut colour. It was pos-
sible to see his hair clearly, for he was not wearing his
hat but carrying it in his hand.

He was carrying it reverently, as if he attached a high
value to it. And this was strange, for it was not much of
a hat. Once it may have been, but now it looked as if
it had been both trodden on and kicked about.

“‘ Mullett,”’ he said, regarding this relic with a dreamy
eye, ‘‘ take this hat and put it away.”

“* Throw it away, sir? ”’

‘“‘Good heavens, no! Put it away—very carefully.
Have you any tissue paper ? ”’

** Yes, sir.”

“Then wrap it up very carefully in tissue-paper and
leave it on the table in my sitting-room.”

“Very good, sir.”

‘“‘ Pardon me for interrupting,’’ saida deprecating voice
behind him, “‘ but might I request a moment of your valu-
able time, Mr. Finch ? ”’

Officer Garroway had left his fixed point, and was
standing in an attitude that seemed to suggest embarrass-
ment. His mild eyes wore a somewhat timid expression.

“‘ Forgive me if I intrude,’’ said Officer Garroway.

“Not at all,”’ said George.

“‘T am a policeman, sir.”

ee So I see,’’

“ And,’ said Officer Garroway sadly, “‘ I have a rather
disagreeable duty to perform, I fear. I would avoid it,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 11

if I could reconcile the act with my conscience, but duty
is duty. One of the drawbacks to the policeman’s life,
Mr. Finch, is that it is not easy for him always to do the
gentlemanly thing.”

“No doubt,” said George.

Mullett swallowed apprehensively. The hunted look had
come back to his face Officer Garroway eyed him with
a gentle solicitude.

“‘T would like to preface my remarks,’”’ he proceeded,
‘‘by saying that I have no personal animus against Mr.
Mullett. I have seen nothing in my brief acquaintance
with Mr. Mullett that leads me to suppose that he is not
a pleasant companion and zealous in the performance of
his work. Nevertheless, I think it nght that you should
know that he is an ex-convict.”

‘* An ex-convict !”’

** Reformed,’’ said Mullett hastily.

** As to that, I cannot say,” said Officer Garroway. “I
can but speak of what I know. Very possibly, as he
asserts, Mr. Mullett is a reformed character. But this does
not alter the fact that he has done his bit of time: and
in pursuance of my duty I can scarcely refrain from men-
tioning this to the gentleman who 1s his present employer.
The moment I was introduced to him, I detected some-
thing oddly familiar about Mr. Mullett’s face, and I have
just recollected that I recently saw a photograph of him
in the Rogues’ Gallery at Headquarters. You are possibly
aware, sir, that convicted criminals are ‘ mugged ’—that
is to say, photographed in various positions—at the com-
mencement of their term of incarceration. This was done
to Mr. Mullett some eighteen months ago when he was
sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for an inside burglary
job. May I ask how Mr. Mullett came to bein your employ-
ment? ”’

“He was sent to me by Mr. Beamish. Mr. Hamilton
Beamish.”’

“‘In that case, sir, I have nothing further to say,” said
the policeman, bowing at the honoured name. “No

12 THE SMALL BACHELOR

doubt Mr. Beamish had excellent reasons for recommend-
ing Mr. Mullett. And, of course, as Mr. Mullett has long
since expiated his offence, I need scarcely say that we of
the Force have nothing against him. I merely considered
it my duty to inform you of his previous activities in case
you should have any prejudice against employing a man
of his antecedents. I must now leave you, as my duties
compel me to return to the station-house, Good afternoon,
Mr. Finch.”’

“Good afternoon.”

‘‘Good day, Mr. Mullett. Pleased to have met you.
You did not by any chance run into a young fellow named
Joe the Gorilla while you were in residence at Sing-Sing ?
No? I’m sorry. He came from my home town. I
should have liked news of Joe.”’

Officer Garroway’s departure was followed by a lengthy
silence. George Finch shuffled his feet awkwardly. He
was an amiable young man, and disliked unpleasant scenes,
He looked at Mullett. Mullett looked at the sky.

“‘ Er—Mullett,”’ said George.

6e Sir ? a8

** This is rather unfortunate.”

‘“Most unpleasant for all concerned, sir.”

“‘I think Mr, Beamish might have told me.”

““No doubt he considered it unnecessary, sir. Being
aware that I had reformed.”

“Yes, but even so.... Er-—Mullett.”

66 Sir ? a3

“The officer spoke of an inside burglary job. What
was your exact—er—line ?’’

“I used to get a place as a valet, sir, and wait till I
saw my chance, and then skin out with everything I could
lay my hands on.”’

“You did, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”’

“Well, I do think Mr. Beamish might have dropped
me a quiet hint. Good heavens! I may have been
putting temptation in your way for weeks.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 18

“You have, sir,—very serious temptation. But I
welcome temptation, Mr. Finch. Every time I’m left
alone with your pearl studs, I have a bout with the Temp-
ter. ‘Why don’t you take them, Mullett?’ he says to
me, ‘Why don’t you take them?’ It’s splendid moral
exercise, sir.”

‘‘I suppose so.”

“Yes, sir, it’s awful what that Tempter will suggest
to me. Sometimes, when you're lying asleep, he says
‘Slip a sponge of chloroform under his nose, Mullett,
and clear out with the swag!’ Just imagine it, sir.”

‘‘T am imagining it.”’

‘‘But I win every time, sir. I’ve not lost one fight
with that old Tempter since I’ve been in your employ-
ment, Mr. Finch.”

‘‘ All the same, I don’t believe you’re going to remain
in my employment, Mullett.’

Mullett inclined his head resignedly.

“*T was afraid of this, sir. The moment that flat-footed
cop came on to this roof, I had a presentiment that there
was going to be trouble. But I should appreciate it very
much if you could see your way to reconsider, sir. I can
assure you that I have completely reformed.”

“ Religion ? ”’

“No, sir. Love.”

The word seemed to touch some hidden chord in George
Finch. The stern, set look vanished from his face. He
gazed at his companion almost meltingly.

“Mullett! Do you love? ’”’

“‘T do, indeed, sir. Fanny’s her name, sir. Fanny
Welch. She’s a pickpocket.”

“A pickpocket | ”’

“Yes, sir. And one of the smartest girls in the busi-
ness. She could take your watch out of your waistcoat,
and you'd be prepared to swear she hadn’t been within a
yard of you It’s almost an art, sir. But she’s promised
to go straight, if I will, and now I’m saving up to buy
the furniture. So I do hope, sir, that you will recon-

14 THE SMALL BACHELOR

sider. It would set me back if I fell out of a place just
now.”

George wrinkled his forehead.

**I oughtn’t to.”

“But you will, sir?”

“It’s weak of me.”’

‘*‘Not it, sir. Christian, I call it.’

George pondered.

** How long have you been with me, Mullett ? ”

‘* Just on a month, sir.”

** And my pearl studs are still there? ”’

** Still in the drawer, sir.”’

*“‘ All right, Mullett. You can stay.”

*‘ Thank you very much indeed, sir.”

There was a silence. The setting sun flung a carpet
of gold across the roof. It was the hour at which men
become confidential.

“* Love is very wonderful, Mullett ! ’’ said George Finch.

** Makes the world go round, I often say, sir.”’

‘* Mullett.”

66 Sir ? a)

** Shall I tell you something ? ”

* If you please, sir.”’

**Mullett,’’ said George Finch, ‘‘I, too, love.”

*“ You surprise me, sir.’

“You may have noticed that I have been fussy about
my clothing of late, Mullett ? ’”’

‘* Oh, no, sir.’’

** Well, I have been, and that was the reason. She
lives on East Seventy-Ninth Street, Mullett. I saw her
first lunching at the Plaza with a woman who looked
like Catherine of Russia. Her mother, no doubt.’’

“Very possibly, sir.”’

**T followed her home. I don’t know why I am telling
you this, Mullett.’

‘*No, sir.’’

“‘ Since then I have haunted the sidewalk outside her
house. Do you know East Seventy-Ninth Street?”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 15

‘* Never been there, sir.”’

‘‘ Well, fortunately it is not a very frequented thorough-
fare, or I should have been arrested for loitering. Until
to-day I have never spoken to her, Mullett.”’

‘‘But you did to-day, sir? ”’

‘Yes. Or, rather, she spoke to me. She has a voice
like the fluting of young birds in the Springtime, Mul-
lett.”’

‘Very agreeable, no doubt, sir.’’

‘‘ Heavenly would express it better. It happened like
this, Mullett. I was outside the house, when she came
along leading a Scotch terrier onaleash. At that moment
a gust of wind blew my hat off and it was bowling past her,
when she stopped it. She trod on it, Mullett.”’

‘‘ Indeed, sir? ”’

‘‘ Yes, this hat which you see in my hand, has been trod-
den on by Her. This very hat.”

‘‘ And then, sir? ”’

‘“‘In the excitement of the moment she dropped the
leash, and the Scotch terrier ran off round the corner in
the direction of Brooklyn. I went in pursuit, and suc-
ceeded in capturing it in Lexington Avenue. My hat
dropped off again and was run over by a taxi-cab. But I
retained my hold of the leash, and eventually restored
the dog toits mistress. She said—and I want you to notice
this very carefully, Mullett,—she said ‘ Oh, thank you so
much |’ ’’

““ Did she, indeed, sir ? ”’

*“She did. Not merely ‘Thank you!’ or ‘Oh, thank
you!’ but ‘Oh, thank you so much!’’’ George Finch
fixed a penetrating stare on his employee. ‘I think that
is significant, Mullett.”

‘Extremely, sir.’

“If she had wished to end the acquaintance then and
there, would she have spoken so warmly ? ”’

“‘ Impossible, sir.’’

“* And I’ve not told you all. Having said ‘Oh, thank
you so much!’ she added: ‘ He #s a naughty dog, isn’t

16 THE SMALL BACHELOR

he?’ You get the extraordinary subtlety of that, Mul-
lett? The words ‘He is a naughty dog’ would have
been a mere statement. By adding ‘Isn’t he?’ she
invited my opinion. She gave me to understand that she
would welcome discussion on the subject. Do you know
what I am going to do, directly I have dressed, Mullett ? ’’

** Dine, sir? ”’

**Dine!’’ George shuddered. ‘‘No! There are
moments when the thought of food is an outrage to
everything that raises Man above the level of the beasts.
As soon as I have dressed—and I shali dress very care-
fully—I am going to return to East Seventy-Ninth Street
and I am going to ring the door-bell and I am going to
go straight in and inquire after the dog. Hope it is none
the worse for its adventure and so on. After all, it is
only the civil thing. I mean these Scotch terriers...
delicate, highly-strung animals. ... Never can tell what
effect unusual excitement may have on them. Yes, Mul-
lett, that is what I propose todo. Brush my dress-clothes
as you have never brushed them before.”

“Very good, sir.”’

** Put me out a selection of ties. Say, a dozen.”

** Yes, sir.’’

** And—did the boot-legger call this morning ? ”’

** Yes, sir.’”’

“‘Then mix me a very strong whisky-and-soda, Mul-
lett,’’ said George Finch. ‘‘ Whatever happens, I must
be at my best to-night.’

§ 4

To George, sunk in a golden reverie, there entered some
few minutes later, jarring him back to life, a pair of three-
pound dumb-bells, which shot abruptly out of the unknown
and came trundling across the roof at him with a repulsive,
clumping sound that would have disconcerted Romeo.
They were followed by J. Hamilton Beamish on all fours.
Hamilton Beamish, who believed in the healthy body
as well as the sound mind, always did half an hour's open-

THE SMALL BACHELOR 17

air work with the bells of an evening: and, not for the
first time, he had tripped over the top stair.

He recovered his balance, his dumb-bells and his spec-
tacles in three labour-saving movements: and with the
aid of the last-named was enabled to perceive George,

**QOh, there you are!” said Hamilton Beamish.

** Yes,’’ said George, “‘and .

** What’s all this I hear from Mullett ? ’’ asked Hamilton
Beamish.

‘‘ What,” inquired George simultaneously, “is all this
I hear from Mullett ? ”’

““Mullett says you’re fooling about after some girl
up-town.”’

‘“‘Mullett says you knew he was an ex-convict when
you recommended him to me.”’

Hamilton Beamish decided to dispose of this triviality
before going on to more serious business.

‘“‘Certainly,’’ he said. ‘‘ Didn’t you read my series in
the Yale Review on the ‘ Problem of the Reformed Crim-
inal’? Ipoint out very clearly that there is nobody with
such a strong bias towards honesty as the man who has
just come out of prison. It stands to reason. If you
had been laid up for a year in hospital] as the result of
jumping off this roof, what would be the one outdoor
sport in which, on emerging, you would be most reluc-
tant to indulge? Jumping off roofs, undoubtedly.”

George continued to frown in a dissatisfied way.

‘“‘ That’s all very well, but a fellow doesn’t want ex-con-
victs hanging about the home.”

‘‘ Nonsense! You must rid yourself of this old-fashioned
prejudice against men who have been in Sing-Sing. Try
to look on the place as a sort of University which fits its
graduates for the problems of the world without. Morally
speaking, such men are the student body. You have
no fault to find with Mullett, have you? ”’

‘No, I can’t say I have.”

“Does his work well? ”

ee Yes.”’

18 THE SMALL BACHELOR
**Not stolen anything from you?”
ee N o.””

**Then why worry? Dismiss the man from your mind.
And now let me hear all about this girl of yours.”

** How do you know anything about it ?’”’

‘‘ Mullett told me.”’

** How did he know?”

‘‘ He followed you a couple of afternoons and saw all.”

George turned pink.

*‘T’ll go straight in and fire that man. The snake!”’

** You will do nothing of the kind. He acted as he did
from pure zeal and faithfulness. He saw you go out,
muttering to yourself...”

‘‘ Did I mutter? ’’ said George, startled.

** Certainly you muttered. You muttered, and you were
exceedingly strange in your manner. So naturally Mul-
lett, good zealous fellow, followed you to see that you came
to no harm. He reports that you spend a large part of
your leisure goggling at some girl in Seventy-Ninth Street,
Fast.”’

George’s pink face turned a shade pinker. A sullen
look came into it.

‘Well, what about it ? ”’

‘‘That’s what I want to know—what about it?”

*“Why shouldn't I goggle? ’’

**Why should you? ”’

“* Because,’’ said George Finch, looking like a stuffed
frog, ‘‘ I love her.”

** Nonsense | ”’

‘‘It isn’t nonsense,”

““Have you ever read my booklet on ‘The Marriage
Sane’?”’

‘*No, I haven’t.”’

“I show there that love is a reasoned emotion that
springs from mutual knowledge, increasing over an extended
period of time, and a community of tastes. How can
you love a girl when you have never spoken to her and
don't even know her name? ”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 19

“IT do know her name.”

“How?”

“I looked through the telephone directory till I found
out who lived at Number 16 East Seventy-Ninth Street.
It took me about a week, because...”

‘“‘Sixteen East Seventy-Ninth Street? You don’t

mean that this girl you’ve been staring at is little Molly
Waddington ? ”’

George started.

‘“‘ Waddington is the name, certainly. That’s why I
was such an infernal time getting to it in the book. Wad-
dington, Sigsbee H.’’ George choked emotionally, and
gazed at his friend with awed eyes. ‘‘ Hamilton!
Hammy, old man! You—you don’t mean to say you
actually know her? Not positively know her? ”’

‘‘ Of course I know her. Know her intimately. Many’s
the time I’ve seen her in her bath-tub,”

George quivered from head to foot.

“It’s a lie! A foul and contemptible...”

** When she was a child.”

‘‘ Oh, when she was a child ? ’’ George became calmer.
*‘Do you mean to say you've known her since she was a
child? Why, then you must be in love with her yourself.”

‘*‘ Nothing of the kind.”

‘You stand there and tell me,’’ said George incredu-
lously, ‘‘ that you have known this wonderful girl for many
years and are not in love with her?”

“T do.”

George regarded his friend with a gentle pity. He could
only explain this extraordinary statement by supposing
that there was some sort of a kink in Hamilton Beamish,
Sad, for in so many ways he was such a fine fellow.

‘The sight of her has never made you feel that, to
win one smile, you could scale the skies and pluck out
the stars and lay them at her feet?”

“Certainly not. Indeed, when you consider that the
nearest star is several million .. .”

** All right,’’ said George. ‘‘ Allright. Letit go. And

20 THE SMALL BACHELOR

now,’ he went on simply, “‘ tell me all about her and her
people and her house and her dog and what she was like
as a child and when she first bobbed her hair and who is
her favourite poet and where she went to school and what
she likes for breakfast . . .”’

Hamilton Beamish reflected.

‘‘ Well, I first knew Molly when her mother was alive.’*

‘* Her mother is alive. I’ve seen her. A woman who
looks like Catherine of Russia.”’

*That’s her stepmother. Sigsbee H. married again
a couple of years ago.”

‘Tell me about Sigsbee H.”

Hamilton Beamish twirled a dumb-bell thoughtfully.

‘‘Sigsbee H. Waddington,” he said, ‘‘is one of those
men who must, I think, during the formative years of
their boyhood have been kicked on the head by a mule.
It has been well said of Sigsbee H. Waddington that, if
men were dominoes, he would be the double-blank. One
of the numerous things about him that rule him out of
serious consideration by intelligent persons is the fact
that he is a synthetic Westerner.”

** A synthetic Westerner ? ”’

‘‘It is a little known, but growing, sub-species akin to
the synthetic Southerner,—with which curious type you
are doubtless familiar.’

“IT don’t think I am.”

““Nonsense. Have you never been in a restaurant
where the orchestra played Dixie ?”’

‘* Of course.”

“Well, then, on such occasions you will have noted
that the man who gives a rebel yell and springs on his
chair and waves a napkin with flashing eyes is always
a suit-and-cloak salesman named Rosenthal or Bechstein
who was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and has never been
farther South than Far Rockaway. That is the synthetic
Southerner,”’

oe J see,”

‘*Sigsbee H. Waddington {fs a synthetic Westerner.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 21

His whole life, with the exception of one summer vacation
when he went to Maine, has been spent in New York
State: and yet, to listen to him, you would think he was
an exiled cowboy. I fancy it must be the effect of seeing
too many Westerns in the movies. Sigsbee Waddington
has been a keen supporter of the motion-pictures from their
inception: and was, I believe, one of the first men in this
city to hiss the villain. Whether it was Tom Mix who
caused the trouble, or whether his weak intellect was
gradually sapped by seeing William S. Hart kiss his horse,
I cannot say: but the fact remains that he now yearns
for the great open spaces and, if you want to ingratiate
yourself with him, all you have to do is to mention that
you were born in Idaho,—a fact which I hope that, as a
rule, you carefully conceal.”’

“I will,’ said George enthusiastically. ‘‘I can’t tell
you how grateful I am to you, Hamilton, for giving me
this information.”’

“You needn’t be. It will do you no good whatever.
When Sigsbee Waddington married for the second time, he
to all intents and purposes sold himself down the river.
To call him a cipher in the home would be to give a too
glowing picture of his importance. He does what his wife
tells him—that and nothing more. She is the one with
whom you want to ingratiate yourself.”’

‘‘ How can this be done ?”’

“It can’t be done. Mrs. Sigsbee Waddington is not an
easy woman to conciliate.”’

‘“‘A tough baby?” inquired George anxiously.

Hamilton Beamish frowned.

‘“‘T dislike the expression. It is the sort of expression
Mullett would use: and I know few things more calculated
to make a thinking man shudder than Mullett’s vocabulary.
Nevertheless, in a certain crude horrible way it does
describe Mrs, Waddington. There is an ancient belief in
Tibet that mankind is descended from a demoness named
Drasrinmo and a monkey. Both Sigsbee H. and Mrs.
Waddington do much to bear out this theory. I am

22 THE SMALL BACHELOR

loath to speak ill of a woman, but it is no use trying to
concea] the fact that Mrs. Waddington is a bounder and a
snob and has a soul like the under-side of a flat stone. She
worships wealth and importance. She likes only the rich
and the titled. As a matter of fact, I happen to know
that there is an English lord hanging about the place whom
she wants Molly to marry.”

‘“‘Over my dead body,”’ said George.

** That could no doubt be arranged. My poor George,”
said Hamilton Beamish, laying a dumb-bell affectionately
on his friend’s head, “* you are taking on too big a contract.
You are going out of your class. It is not as if you were
one of these dashing young Lochinvar fellows. You are
mild and shy. You are diffident and timid. I class you
among Nature’s white mice. It would take a woman like
Mrs. Sigsbee Waddington about two and a quarter minutes
to knock you for a row of Portuguese ash-cans,—er, as
Mullett would say,’’ added Hamilton Beamish witha touch
of confusion.

“* She couldn’t eat me,”’ said George valiantly.

“‘T don’t know so much. She is not a vegetarian.”’

“I was thinking,’’ said George, ‘‘ that you might take
me round and introduce me.”’

‘“‘And have your blood on my head? No, no.”

‘‘What do you mean, my blood? You talk as if this
woman were a syndicate of gunmen. I’m not afraid of
her. To get to know Molly ’’—George gulped—“ I would
fight a mad bull.”’

Hamilton Beamish was touched. This great man was
human.

““ These are brave words, George. You extort my admir-
ation. I disapprove of the reckless, unconsidered way
you are approaching this matter, and I still think you
would be well advised to read ‘The Marriage Sane’ and
get a proper estimate of Love: but I cannot but like your
spirit. If you really wish it, therefore, I will take you
round and introduce you to Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington.
And may the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 28

‘‘Hamilton! To-night ? ”’

*‘Not to-night. I am lecturing to the West Orange
Daughters of Minerva to-night on The Modern Drama.
Some other time.”’

‘“‘Then to-night,’”’ said George, blushing faintly, “I
think I may as well just stroll round Seventy-Ninth Street
way and—er—well, just stroll round.”

‘* What is the good of that ?”’

** Well, I can look at the house, can’t I ? ”’

“Young blood !’’ said Hamilton Beamish indulgently.
**'Young blood !”’

He poised himself firmly on his No-Jars, and swung the
dumb-bells in a forceful arc.

$5

** Mullett,”’ said George.

ee Sir ? a9

** Have you pressed my dress clothes ? ”’

** Yes, sir.”

** And brushed them ? ”

** Yes, sir.’

““My ties—are they laid out?”

‘“‘In a neat row, sir.”

George coughed.

“Mullett !”’

“Sir? ”’

**You recollect the little chat we were having just
now ?”’

ee Sir ? ad

*‘ About the young lady I—er...

**Oh, yes, sir.

*‘I understand you have seen her.”

** Just a glimpse, sir.”’

George coughed again.

‘‘ Ah—rather attractive, Mullett, didn’t you think ? ”

*‘Extremely, sir. Very cuddly.”

‘‘The exact adjective I would have used myself,
Mullett |”

a9

24 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“Indeed, sir? ’’

**Cuddly! A beautiful word.”

‘TI think so, sir.”

George coughed for the third time.

*‘A lozenge, sir? ’’ said Mullett solicitously.

**No, thank you.”

** Very good, sir.”

** Mullett | ”’

Sir?”

*‘T find that Mr. Beamish is an intimate friend of this
young lady.”’

‘‘Fancy that, sir!”

‘He is going to introduce me.”

“Very gratifying, I am sure, sir.”

George sighed dreamily.

** Life is very sweet, Mullett.’’

‘‘For those that like it, sir,—yes, sir.”

“Lead me to the ties,’’ said George.

CHAPTER TWO

§1
T the hour of seven-thirty, just when George
Finch was trying out his fifth tie, a woman stood
A pacing the floor in the Byzantine boudoir at
Number 16 Seventy-Ninth Street, East.

At first sight this statement may seem contradictory. Is
it possible, the captious critic may ask, for a person simul-
taneously to stand and pace the floor? The answer is Yes,
if he or she is sufficiently agitated as to the soul. You do
it by placing yourself on a given spot and scrabbling the
feet alternately like a cat kneading a hearth-rug. It is
sometimes the only method by which strong women can
keep from having hysterics.

Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington was a strong woman. In
fact, so commanding was her physique that a stranger might
have supposed her to be one in the technical, or circus,
sense. She was not tall, but she had bulged so generously
in every possible direction that, when seen for the first
time, she gave the impression of enormous size. No theatre,
however little its programme had managed to attract the
public, could be said to be ‘ sparsely filled ’ if Mrs. Wadding-
ton had dropped in to look at the show. Public speakers,
when Mrs. Waddington was present, had the illusion that
they were addressing most of the population of the United
States. And when she went to Carlsbad or Aix-les-Bains
to take the waters, the authorities huddled together
nervously and wondered if there would be enough to go
round.

Her growing bulk was a perpetual sorrow—one of many
—toherhusband. When he had married her, she had been
slim and svelfe. But she had also been the relict of the
late P. Homer Horlick, the Cheese King, and he had left

25

26 THE SMALL BACHELOR

her several million dollars. Most of the interest accruing
from this fortune she had, so it sometimes seemed to Sigsbee
H. Waddington, spent on starchy foods.

Mrs. Waddington stood and paced the floor, and presently
the door opened.

‘‘Lord Hunstanton,”’ announced Ferris, the butler.

The standard of male looks presented up to the present
in this story has not been high: but the man who now

entered did much to raise the average. He was tall and
slight and elegant, with frank blue eyes—one of them
preceded by an eye-glass—and one of those clipped mous-
taches. His clothes had been cut by an inspired tailor and
pressed by a genius, His tie was simply an ethereal white
butterfly, straight from heaven, that hovered over the
collar-stud as if it were sipping pollen from some exotic
flower. (George Finch, now working away at number eight
and having just got it creased in four places, would have
screamed hoarsely with envy at the sight of that tie.)

‘‘Well, here I am,” said Lord Hunstanton. He paused
for a moment, then added, ‘‘ What, what!’ as if he felt
that it was expected of him.

‘It was so kind of you to come,”’ said Mrs. Waddington,
pivoting on her axis and panting like a hart after the water-
brooks.

‘“Not at all.”

‘‘T knew I could rely on you.”

‘““You have only to command.”

“‘ You are such a true friend, though I have known you
only such a short time.”

‘“‘TIs anything wrong ?’’ asked Lord Hunstanton.

He was more than a little surprised to find himself at
seven-forty in a house where he had been invited to dine
at half-past eight. His dressing had been interrupted by
a telephone-call from Mrs. Waddington’s butler, begging
him to come round at once: and, noting his hostess’s
agitation, he hoped that nothing had gone wonky with the
dinner.

“Everything is wrong !”*

THE SMALL “BACHELOR 27

Lord Hunstanton sighed inaudibly. Did this mean cold
meat and a pickle?

‘‘ Sigsbee is having one of his spells!”

‘**'You mean he has been taken ill?”

“Notill. Fractious.” Mrs. Waddingtongulped. ‘“‘ It’s
so hard that this should have occurred on the night of
an important dinner-party, after you have taken such
trouble with his education. I have said a hundred times
that, since you came, Sigsbee has been a different man.
He knows all the forks now, and can even talk intelligently
about soufiés.”’

‘‘T am only too glad if any little pointers I have been
able to... .”

‘* And when I take him out for a run he always walks
on the outside of the pavement. And here he must go,
on the night of my biggest dinner-party, and have one of
his spells.”

‘‘What is the trouble? Is he violent? ”’

‘No. Sullen.”’

‘‘ What about ? ”’

Mrs. Waddington’s mouth set in a hard line.

‘‘ Sigsbee is pining for the West again!”

‘You don't say so?”

‘* Yes, sir, he’s pining for the great wide open spaces of
the West. He says the East is effete and he wants to be
out there among the silent canyons where men are men.
If you want to know what I think, somebody’s been feeding
him Zane Grey.”

‘‘Can nothing be done? ”’

‘‘ Yes—intime. Ican get him nght if I’m given time,
by stopping his pocket-money. But I need time, and here
he is, an hour before my important dinner, with some of
the most wealthy and exclusive people in New York
expected at any moment, refusing to put on his dress
clothes and saying that all a man that is a man needs is
to shoot his bison and cut off a steak and cook it by the
light of the western stars. And what I want to know is,
what am I to do?”’

28 ' THE SMALL BACHELOR

Lord Hunstanton twisted his moustache thoughtfully.

‘** Very perplexing.”

‘**T thought if you went and had a word with him... .

“IT doubt if it would do any good. I suppose you
couldn’t dine without him ? ”’

‘‘It would make us thirteen.”

‘‘T see.’’ His lordship’s face brightened. ‘‘ I’ve got it!
Send Miss Waddington to reason with him.”

‘Molly ? You think he would listen to her? ”’

‘‘He is very fond of her.”

Mrs. Waddington reflected.

‘¢ It’s worth trying. I’ll go up and see if she is dressed.
She is a dear girl, isn’t she, Lord Hunstanton ? ”’

‘Charming, charming.”

“I’m sure I’m as fond of her as if she were my own
daughter.’

‘“No doubt.”

‘‘Though, of course, dearly as I love her, I am never
foolishly indulgent. So many girls to-day are spoiled by
foolish indulgence.”

66 True.’’

“* My great wish, Lord Hunstanton, is one day to see her
happily married to some good man.”’

His lordship closed the door behind Mrs. Waddington
and stood for some moments in profound thought. He
may have been wondering what was the earliest he could
expect a cocktail, or he may have been musing on some
deeper subject—if there is a deeper subject.

§2

Mrs. Waddington navigated upstairs, and paused before
a door near the second landing.

“Molly !”’

“Yes, mother? ”’

Mrs. Waddington was frowning as she entered the room.
How often she had told this girl to call her ‘ mater’ |!

But this was a small point, and not worth mentioning
at a time like the present. She sank into a chair with a

THE SMALL BACHELOR 29

creaking groan. Strong woman though she was, Mrs. Sigsbee
Waddington, like the chair, was near to breaking down.

“‘Good heavens, mother! What’s the matter? ”’

** Send her away,’’ muttered Mrs. Waddington, nodding
at her stepdaughter’s maid.

‘‘All right, mother. I shan’t want you any more,
Julie. I can manage now. Shall I get you a glass of
water, mother ? ”’

Molly looked at her suffering stepparent with gentle con-
cern, wishing that she had something stronger than water
to offer. But her late mother had brought her up in that
silly, stuffy way in which old-fashioned mothers used to
bring up their daughters: and, incredible as it may seem
in these enlightened days, Molly Waddington had reached
the age of twenty without forming even a nodding acquaint-
ance with alcohol. Now, no doubt, as she watched her
stepmother gulping before her like a moose that has had
trouble in the home, she regretted that she was not one
of those sensible modern girls who always carry a couple
of shots around with them in a jewelled flask.

But, though a defective upbringing kept her from being
useful in this crisis, nobody could deny that, as she stood
there half-dressed for dinner, Molly Waddington was
extremely ornamental. If George Finch could have seen
her at that moment. ... But then if George Finch had
seen her at that moment, he would immediately have shut
his eyes like a gentleman: for there was that about her
costume, in its present stage of development, which was
not for the male gaze.

Still, however quickly he had shut his eyes, he could
not have shut them rapidly enough to keep from seeing
that Mullett, in his recent remarks on an absorbing subject,
had shown an even nicer instinct for the mot juste than he
had supposed. Beyond all chance for evasion or doubt,
Molly Waddington was cuddly. She was wearing primrose
knickers, and her silk-stockinged legs tapered away to
little gold shoes. Her pink fingers were clutching at a
blue dressing-jacket with swansdown trimming. Her

3

80 THE SMALL BACHELOR

bobbed hair hung about a round little face with a tip-tilted
little nose. Her eyes were large, her teeth small and white
and even. She had a little brown mole on the back of her
neck and—in short, to sum the whole thing up, if George
Finch could have caught even the briefest glimpse of her
at this juncture, he must inevitably have fallen over side-
ways, yapping like a dog.

Mrs. Waddington’s breathing had become easier, and
she was sitting up in her chair with something like the old
imperiousness.

‘“‘ Molly,’’ said Mrs. Waddington, “‘ have you been giving
your father Zane Grey ?”’

“Of course not.”

“You're sure? ”’

“‘Quite. I don’t think there’s any Zane Grey in the
house.”’

‘“Then he’s been sneaking out and seeing Tom Mix
again,’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

“You don’t mean... .?”

“Yes! He’s got one of his spells.”

“A bad one? ”’

“So bad that he refuses to dress for dinner. He says
that if the boys ’’"—Mrs. Waddington shuddered—“ if the
boys don’t like him in a flannel shirt, he won’t come in to
dinner at all. And Lord Hunstanton suggested that I
should send you to reason with him.”

‘“‘Lord Hunstanton? Has he arrived already? ”’

*‘T telephoned for him. I am coming to rely on Lord
Hunstanton more and more every day. What a dear
fellow he is!”’

“* Yes,’’ said Molly, a little dubiously. She was not fond
of his lordship.

‘“‘So handsome.”

*“'Yes.”’

“Such breeding.”

“IT suppose so.”’

“I should be very happy,”’ said Mrs. Waddington, “‘ if a
man like Lord Hunstanton asked you to be his wife.’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 81

Molly fiddled with the trimming of her dressing-jacket’
This was not the first time the subject had come up between
her stepmother and herself. A remark like the one just
recorded was Mrs. Waddington’s idea of letting fall a
quiet hint.

‘“Well ...”’ said Molly.

‘‘What do you mean, well?”

‘** Well, don’t you think he’s rather stiff.”

** Stiff !”’

*‘Don’t you find him a little starchy ? ”’

“‘If you mean that Lord Hunstanton’s manners are
perfect, I agree with you.”

“I’m not sure that I like a man’s manners to be too
perfect,’’ said Molly meditatively. ‘‘ Don’t you think a
shy man can be rather attractive? ’’ She scraped the
toe of one gold shoe against the heel of the other. ‘‘ The
sort of man I think I should rather like,”’ she said, a dreamy
look in her eyes, ‘‘ would be a sort of slimmish, smallish
man with nice brown eyes and rather gold-y, chestnutty
hair, who kind of looks at you from a distance because he’s
too shy to speak to you and, when he does get a chance to
speak to you, sort of chokes and turns pink and twists his
fingers and makes funny noises and trips over his feet and
looks rather a lamb and...”

Mrs. Waddington had risen from her chair like a storm-
cloud brooding over a country-side.

‘* Molly !’’ she cried. ‘‘ Who is this young man?”

‘‘Why, nobody, of course! Just some one I sort of
imagined.”’

‘‘Qh!’’ said Mrs, Waddington, relieved. ‘‘ You spoke
as if you knew him.”’

‘“What a strange idea! ”’

‘“‘ If any young man ever does look at you and make funny
noises, you will ignore him.”’

‘“‘ Of course.”’

Mrs. Waddington started.

‘* All this nonsense you have been talking has made me
forget about your father. Put on your dress and go down

82 THE SMALL BACHELOR

to him at once. Reason with him! If he refuses to come
in to dinner, we shall be thirteen, and my party will be
ruined.,’’

‘* I’ll be ready in a couple of minutes. Where is he? ”’

“In the library.”

**T’ll be right down.”

‘* And, when you have seen him, go into the drawing-
room and talk to Lord Hunstanton. He is all alone.”

‘Very well, mother.”

“* Mater.”’

“* Mater,” said Molly.

She was one of those nice, dutiful girls.

§ 3

In addition to being a nice, dutiful girl, Molly Waddington
was also a persuasive, wheedling girl. Better proof of this
statement can hardly be afforded than by the fact that,
as the clocks were pointing to ten minutes past eight, a
red-faced little man with stiff grey hair and a sulky face
shambled down the stairs of Number 16 East Seventy-
Ninth Street, and, pausing in the hall, subjected Ferris,
the butler, to an offensive glare. It was Sigsbee H.
Waddington, fully, if sloppily, dressed in the accepted mode
of gentlemen of social standing about to dine.

The details of any record performance are always interest-
ing, so it may be mentioned that Molly had reached the
library at seven minutes toeight. She had started wheed-
ling at exactly six minutes and forty-five seconds to the
hour. At seven fifty-four Sigsbee Waddington had begun
to weaken. At seven fifty-seven he was fighting in the last
ditch: and at seven fifty-nine, vowing he would ne’er
consent, he consented.

Into the arguments used by Molly we need not enter
fully. It is enough to say that, if a man loves his daughter
dearly, and if she comes to him and says that she has been
looking forward to a certain party and is wearing a new
dress for that party, and if, finally, she adds that, should
he absent himself from that party, the party and her

THE SMALL BACHELOR 88

pleasure will be ruined,—then, unless the man has a heart
of stone, he will give in. Sigsbee Waddington had not a
heart of stone. Many good judges considered that he had
a head of concrete, but nobody had ever disparaged his
heart. At eight precisely he was in his bedroom, shovelling
on his dress clothes: and now, at ten minutes past, he
stood in the hall and looked disparagingly at Ferris.

Sigsbee Waddington thought Ferris was an over-fed
wart.

Ferris thought Sigsbee Waddington ought to be ashamed
to appear in public in a tie like that.

But thoughts are not words. What Ferris actually said
was :

‘‘A cocktail, sir? ’’

And what Sigsbee Waddington actually said was:

“Yup! Gimme!”

There was a pause. Mr. Waddington still unsoothed,
continued to glower. Ferris, resuming his marmoreal
calm, had begun to muse once more, as was his habit when
in thought, on Brangmarley Hall, Little-Seeping-in-the-
Wold, Salop, Eng., where he had spent the early, happy
days of his butlerhood.

“Ferris!” said Mr. Waddington at length.

¢¢ Sir ? a8

‘You ever been out West, Ferris ? ”’

“No, sir.”

‘Ever want to go?”

**No, sir.’’

‘‘ Why not?’ demanded Mr. Waddington belligerently.

‘IT understand that in the Western States of America,
sir, there is a certain lack of comfort, and the social ameni-
ties are not rigorously observed.”’

‘‘Gangway!”’ said Mr. Waddington, making for the
front door.

He felt stifled. He wanted air. He yearned, if only for
a few brief instants, to be alone with the silent stars.

It would be idle to deny that, at this particular moment,
Sigsbee H. Waddington wasin a dangerous mood. The his-

84 THE SMALL BACHELOR

tory of nacions shows that the wildest upheavals come from
those peoples that have been most rigorously oppressed:
and it is so with individuals. There is no man so terrible
in his spasmodic fury as the hen-pecked husband during
his short spasms of revolt. Even Mrs. Waddington recog-
nized that, no matter how complete her control normally;
Sigsbee H., when having one of his spells, practically
amounted to a rogue elephant. Her policy was to keep
out of his way till the fever passed, and then to discipline
him severely.

As Sigsbee Waddington stood on the pavement outside
his house, drinking in the dust-and-gasolene mixture which
passes for air in New York and scanning the weak imitation
stars which are the best the East provides, he was grim and
squiggle-eyed and ripe for murders, stratagems and spoils.
Molly’s statement that there was no Zane Grey in the house
had been very far from the truth. Sigsbee Waddington
had his private store, locked away in a secret cupboard,
and since early morning ‘ Riders of the Purple Sage’ had
hardly ever been out of his hand. During the afternoon,
moreover, he had managed to steal away to a motion-
picture house on Sixth Avenue where they were presenting
Henderson Hoover and Sara Svelte in ‘ That L’1l Gal From
The Bar B Ranch.’ Sigsbee Waddington, as he stood on
the pavement, was clad in dress clothes and looked like a
stage waiter, but at heart he was wearing chaps and a
Stetson hat and people spoke of him as Two-Gun Thomas.

A Rolls-Royce drew up at the kerb, and Mr. Waddington
moved a step or twoaway. A fat man alighted and helped
his fatter wife out. Mr. Waddington recognized them.
B.and Mrs. Brewster Bodthorne. B. Brewster was the first
vice-president of Amalgamated Tooth-Brushes, and rolled
in money.

“Pah!’’ muttered Mr. Waddington, sickened to the
core,

The pair vanished into the house, and presently another
Rolls-Royce arrived, followed by a Hispano-Suiza. Con-
solidated Pop-corn and wife emerged, and then United

THE SMALL BACHELOR 85

Beef and daughter. A consignment worth on the hoof
between eighty and a hundred million.

““How long?’’ moaned Mr. Waddington. ‘‘ How
long ?”’

And then, as the door closed, he was aware of a young
man behaving strangely on the pavement some few feet
away from him.

§ 4

The reason why George Finch—for it was he—was
behaving strangely was that he was a shy young man
and consequently unable to govern his movements by the
light of purereason. The ordinary tough-skinned everyday
young fellow with a face of brass and the placid gall of an
Army mule would, of course, if he had decided to pay a
call upon a girl in order to make inquiries about her dog,
have gone right ahead and done it. He would have shot
his cuffs and straightened his tie, and then trotted up the
steps and punched the front-door bell. Not so the diffident
George.

George’s methods were different. Graceful and, in their
way, pretty to watch, but different. First, he stood for
some moments on one foot, staring at the house. Then,
as if some friendly hand had dug three inches of a meat-
skewer into the flesh of his leg, he shot forward in a
spasmodic bound. Checking this as he reached the steps,
he retreated a pace or two and once more became immobile.
A few moments later, the meat-skewer had got to work
again and he had sprung up the steps, only to leap back-
wards once more on to the sidewalk.

When Mr. Waddington first made up his mind to accost
him, he had begun to walk round in little circles, mumbling
to himself.

Sigsbee Waddington was in no mood for this sort of
thing. It was the sort of thing, he felt bitterly, which
could happen only in this degraded East. Out West, men
are men and do not dance tangoes by themselves on front
doorsteps. Venters, the hero of ‘ Riders of the Purple

86 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Sage,’ he recalled, had been described by the author as
standing ‘ tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back,
with the muscles of his arms rippling and a blue flame of
defiance in his gaze.’ How different, felt Mr. Waddington,
from this imbecile young man who seemed content to waste
life’s springtime playing solitary round-games in the public
streets.

** Hey!’ he said sharply.

The exclamation took George amidships just as he had
returned to the standing-on-one-leg position. It caused
him to lose his balance, and if he had not adroitly clutched
Mr. Waddington by the left ear, it is probable that he
would have fallen.

‘‘Sorry,’’ said George, having sorted himself out.

‘** What’s the use of being sorry ?’’ growled the injured
man, tenderly feeling his ear. ‘‘ And what the devil are
you doing anyway ?”’

‘* Just paying a call,’’ explained George.

‘* Doing a what?”

‘I’m paying a formal call at this house.”

** Which house ? ”’

‘*Thisone. Numbersixteen. Waddington, Sigsbee H.”

Mr. Waddington regarded him with unconcealed hostility.

‘“‘Oh, you are, are you? Well, it may interest you to
learn that I am Sigsbee H. Waddington, and I don’t know
you from Adam. So now!”

George gasped.

‘You are Sigsbee H. Waddington ? ’’ he said reverently.

ce I am.’’

George was gazing at Molly’s father as at some beautiful
work of art—a superb painting, let us say—the sort of
thing which connoisseurs fight for and which finally gets
knocked down to Dr. Rosenbach for three hundred thousand
dollars. Which will give the reader a rough idea of what
love can do: for, considered in a calm and unbiased spirit,
Sigsbee Waddington was little, if anything, to look at.

“‘Mr, Waddington,”’ said George, ‘‘ I am proud to meet
you.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 87

‘You're what ?”’

‘“‘ Proud to meet you.”

“What of it?” said Sigsbee Waddington churlishly

** Mr. Waddington,’ said George, ‘‘ I was born in Idaho.”

Much has been written of the sedative effect of pouring
oil on the raging waters of the ocean, and it is on record
that the vision of the Holy Grail, sliding athwart a rainbow,
was generally sufficient to still the most fiercely warring
passions of young knights in the Middle Ages. But never
since history began can there have been so sudden a change
from red-eyed hostility to smiling benevolence as occurred
now in Sigsbee H. Waddington. As George’s words, like
some magic spell, fell upon his ears, he forgot that one of
those ears were smarting badly as the result of the impulsive
clutch of this young man before him. Wrath melted from
his soul like dew from a flower beneath thesun. He beamed
onGeorge. He pawed George’ssleeve with a paternal hand.

‘“* You really come from the West ? ”’ he cried.

ce I d 0.’

“From God’s own country ? From the great wonderful
West with its wide open spaces where a red-blooded man
can fill his lungs with the breath of freedom ? ”’

It was not precisely the way George would have described
East Gilead, which was a stuffy little hamlet with a poorish
water-supply and one of the worst soda-fountains in Idaho,
but he nodded amiably.

Mr. Waddington dashed a hand across his eyes.

‘“‘The West! Why, it’s like a mother to me! I love
every flower that blooms on the broad bosom of its sweeping
plains, every sun-kissed peak of its everlasting hills.”

George said he did, too.

“Its beautiful valleys, mystic in their transparent,
luminous gloom, weird in the quivering, golden haze of the
lightning that flickers over them.”

‘““Ah!’’ said George.

‘‘The dark spruces tipped with glimmering lights!
The aspens bent low in the wind, like waves in a tempest
at sea!”

88 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘Can you beat them!”’ said George.

“The forest of oaks tossing wildly and shining with
gleams of fire! ”’

‘‘ What could be sweeter ? ’’ said George.

“* Say, listen,’’ said Mr. Waddington, ‘‘ you and I must
see more of each other. Come and havea bite of dinner ! ”’

“Now?”

“Right this very minute. We've got a few of these
puny-souled Eastern millionaires putting on the nose-bag
with us to-night, but you won’t mind them. We'll just
look at °em and despise ’em. And after dinner you and
I will slip off to my study and have a good chat.”

‘‘ But won’t Mrs. Waddington object to an unexpected
guest at the last moment? ”’

Mr. Waddington expanded his chest, and tapped it
spaciously.

“* Say, listen—what’s your name ?—Finch ?—Say, listen,
Finch, do I look like the sort of man who’s bossed by his
wife ? ”’

It was precisely the sort of man that George thought he
did look like, but this was not the moment to say so.

“It’s very kind of you,”’ he said.

‘‘Kind? Say, listen, if I was riding along those illimi-
table prairies and got storm-bound outside your ranch
in Idaho, you wouldn’t worry about whether you were
being kind when you asked me in for a bite, would you ?
You’d say, ‘Step right in, pardner! The place is yours.’
Very well, then! ”’

Mr. Waddington produced a latch-key.

‘‘ Ferris,’’ said Mr. Waddington in the hall, “‘ tell those
galoots down in the kitchen to set another place at table.
A pard of mine from the West has happened in for a snack.”

CHAPTER THREE

§ 1

HE perfect hostess makes a point of never display-
ing discomposure. In moments of trial she aims
at the easy repose of manner of a Red Indian
at the stake. Nevertheless, there was a moment when,
as she saw Sigsbee H. caracole into the drawing-room with
George and heard him announce in aringing voice that this
fine young son of the western prairies had come to take

pot-luck, Mrs. Waddington indisputably reeled.

She recovered herself. All the woman in her was urging
her to take Sigsbee H. by his outstanding ears and shake
him till he came unstuck, but she fought the emotion down.
Gradually her glazed eye lost its dead-fishy look. Like
Death in the poem, she ‘ grinned horrible a ghastly smile.’
And it was with a well-assumed graciousness that she
eventually extended to George the quivering right hand
which, had she been a less highly civilized woman, would
about now have been landing on the side of her husband’s
head, swung from the hip.

““Chahmed !”’ said Mrs. Waddington. “So very, very
glad that you were able to come, Mr. um

She paused, and George, eyeing her mistily, gathered that
she wished to be informed of his name. He would have
been glad to supply the information, but unfortunately at
the moment he had forgotten it himself. He had a dim
sort of idea that it began with an F ora G, but beyond
that his mind was a blank.

The fact was that, in the act of shaking hands with his
hostess, George Finch had caught sight of Molly, and the
spectacle had been a little too much for him.

Molly was wearing the new evening dress of which she
had spoken so feelingly to her father at their, recent

39

40 THE SMALL BACHELOR

interview, and it seemed to George as if the scales had fallen
from his eyes and he was seeing her for the first time.
Before, in a vague way he had supposed that she possessed
arms and shoulders and hair, but it was only at this moment
that he perceived how truly these arms and those shoulders
and that hair were arms and shoulders and hair in the
deepest and holiest sense of the words. It was as if a
goddess had thrown aside the veil. It was as if a statue
had come to life. It was as if ... well, the point we
are trying to make is that George Finch was impressed.
His eyes enlarged to the dimensions of saucers; the tip
of his nose quivered like a rabbit’s: and unseen hands
began to pour iced water down his spine.

Mrs. Waddington, having given him a long, steady look
that blistered his forehead, turned away and began to talk
to a soda-water magnate. She had no real desire to
ascertain George’s name, though she would have read it
with pleasure on a tombstone.

“Dinner is served,’’ announced Ferris, the butler,
appearing noiselessly like a Djinn summoned by the
rubbing of a lamp.

George found himself swept up in the stampede of
millionaires. He was still swallowing feebly.

There are few things more embarrassing to a shy and
sensitive young man than to be present at a dinner-party
where something seems to tell him he is not really wanted.
The something that seemed to tell George Finch he was
not really wanted at to-night’s festive gathering was Mrs.
Waddington’s eye, which kept shooting down the table
at intervals and reducing him to pulp at those very moments
when he was beginning to feel that, if treated with gentle
care and kindness, he might eventually recover.

It was an eye that, like a thermos flask, could be alter-
nately extremely hot and intensely cold. When George
met it during the soup course he had the feeling of having
encountered a simoom while journeying across an African
desert., When, on the other hand, it sniped him as he

THE SMALL BACHELOR 41

toyed with his fish, his sensations were those of a searcher
for the Pole who unexpectedly bumps into a blizzard.
But, whether it was cold or hot, there was always in Mrs.
Waddington’s gaze one constant factor—a sort of sick
loathing which nothing that he could ever do, George
felt, would have the power to allay. It was the kind of
look which Sisera might have surprised in the eye of Jael
the wife of Heber, had he chanced to catch it immediately
before she began operations with the spike. George had
made one new friend that night, but not two.

The consequence was that as regards George Finch’s
contribution to the feast of wit and flow of soul at that
dinner-party we have nothing to report. He uttered no
epigrams. He told no good stories. Indeed, the only
time he spoke at all was when he said ‘Sherry’ to the
footman when he meant ‘ Hock.’

Even, however, had the conditions been uniformly
pleasant, it is to be doubted whether he would have really
dominated the gathering. Mrs. Waddington, in her
selection of guests, confined herself to the extremely
wealthy: and, while the conversation of the extremely
wealthy is fascinating in its way, it tends to be a little too
technical for the average man.

With the soup, some one who looked like a cartoon of
Capital in a Socialistic paper said he was glad to see that
Westinghouse Common were buoyant again. A man who
might have been his brother agreed that they had firmed up
nicely at closing. Whereas Wabash Pref. A., falling to
73%, caused shakings of the head. However, one rather
liked the look of Royal Dutch Oil Ordinaries at 54}.

With the fish, United Beef began to tell a neat, though
rather long, story about the Bolivian Land Concession,
the gist of which was that the Bolivian Oil and Land
Syndicate, acquiring from the Bolivian Government the
land and prospecting concessions of Bolivia, would be
known as Bolivian Concessions, Ltd, and would have a
capital of one million dollars in two hundred thousand five-
dollar ‘A’ shares and two hundred thousand half-dollar

42 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘B ’ shares, and that while no cash payment was to be made
to the vendor syndicate the latter was being allotted the
whole of the ‘ B ’ shares as consideration for the concession.
And—this was where the raconteur made his point—the
‘B’ shares were to receive half the divisible profits and to
rank equal with the ‘ A ’ shares in any distribution of assets.

The story went well, and conversation became general.
There was a certain amount of good-natured chaff about
the elasticity of the form of credit handled by the Com-
mercial Banks, and once somebody raised a laugh with
a sly retort about the Reserve against Circulation and Total
Deposits. On the question of the collateral liability of
shareholders, however, argument ran high, and it was rather
a relief when, as tempers began to get a little heated, Mrs.
Waddington gave the signal and the women left the table.

Coffee having been served and cigars lighted, the
magnates drew together at the end of the table where Mr.
Waddington sat. But Mr. Waddington, adroitly side-
stepping, left them and came down to George.

“Out West,” said Mr. Waddington in a rumbling under-
tone, malevolently eyeing Amalgamated Tooth-Brushes,
who had begun to talk about the Mid-Continent Fiduciary
Conference at St. Louis, “ they would shoot at that fellow’s
feet.”

George agreed that such behaviour could reflect nothing
but credit on the West.

‘These Easterners make me tired,’ said Mr. Wad-
dington.

George confessed to a similar fatigue.

“When you think that at this very moment out in
Utah and Arizona,” said Mr. Waddington, “strong men
are packing their saddle-bags and making them secure
with their lassoes, you kind of don’t know whether to laugh
or cry, do you?”

That was the very problem, said George.

“Say, listen,” said Mr. Waddington, “I'll just push
these pot-bellied guys off upstairs, and then you andI will
sneak off to my study and have a real talk.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 48

Nothing spoils a féte-d-téte chat between two newly-made
friends more than a disposition towards reticence on the part
of the senior of the pair: and it was fortunate therefore,
that, by the time he found himself seated opposite to George
in his study, the heady influence of Zane Grey and the
rather generous potations in which he had indulged during
dinner had brought Sigsbee H. Waddington to quite a
reasonably communicative mood. He had reached the
stage when men talk disparagingly about their wives. He
tapped George on the knee, informed him three times that
he liked his face, and began.

“You married, Winch ? ”

“ Finch,” said George.

“How do you mean, Finch?” asked Mr. Waddington,
puzzled.

“My name is Finch.”

“What of it?”

“You called me Winch.”

6s Why ? 3?

“T think you thought it was my name.”

“What was?”

“Winch.”

“You said just now it was Finch. ze

“Yes, it is. I was saying .

Mr. Waddington tapped him on ‘the knee once more.

“Young man,” he said, “ pull yourself together. If your
name is Finch, why pretend that itis Winch ? I don’t like
this shiftiness. It does not come well from a Westerner.
Leave this petty shilly-shallying to Easterners like that
vile rabble of widow-and-orphan oppressors upstairs, all of
whom have got incipient Bright’s disease. If your name is
Pinch, admit it like a man. Let your yea be yea and your
nay be nay,” said Mr. Waddington a little severely, holding
a match to the fountain-pen which, as will happen to the
best of us in moments of emotion, he had mistaken for his

cigar. °

44 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“As a matter of fact, I’m not,” said George.

““Not what?”

“* Married.”’

“T never said you were.”

“You asked me if I was.”

“Did 1?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure of that? ” said Mr. Waddington keenly.

“Quite. Just after we sat down, you asked me if I
was married.”

“And your reply was...?”

é¢ N O. iP)

Mr. Waddington breathed a sigh of relief.

“Now we have got it straight at last,” he said, “ and
whv you beat about the bush like that, I cannot imagine.
Well, what I say to you, Pinch—and I say it very seriously
as an older, wiser, and better-looking man—is this.”” Mr.
Waddington drew thoughtfully at the fountain-pen for a
moment. ‘I say to you, Pinch, be very careful, when you
marry, that you have money of your own. And, having
money of your own, keep it. Never be dependent on your
wife for the occasional little sums which even the most
prudent man requires to see him through the day. Take
my case. When I married, I was a wealthy man. Ihad
money of my own. Lots of it. I was beloved by all,
being generous to a fault. I bought my wife—I am speak-
ing now of my first wife—a pearl necklace that cost fifty
thousand dollars.”

He cocked a bright eye at George, and George, feeling
that comment was required, said that it did him credit.

“Not credit,” said Mr. Waddington. “Cash. Cold
cash. Fifty thousand dollars of it. And what happened ?
Shortly after I married again I lost all my money through
unfortunate speculations on the Stock Exchange and be-
came absolutely dependent on my second wife. And that
is why you see me to-day, Winch, a broken man. I will
tell you something, Pinch—something no one suspects and
something which I have never told anybody else and

THE SMALL BACHELOR 45

wouldn’t be telling you now if I didn’t like your face. . .
I am not master in my own home!”

¢é N Oo ? a)

“No. Not master in my own home. I want to live
in the great, glorious West, and my second wife insists on
remaining in the soul-destroying East. And I'll tell you
something else.” Mr. Waddington paused and scrutinized
the fountain-pen with annoyance. ‘“‘ This darned cigar
won’t draw,” he said petulantly.

“T think it’s a fountain-pen,”’ said George.

“A fountain pen?” Mr. Waddington, shutting one
eye, tested this statement and found it correct. ‘‘ There!”
he said, with a certain moody satisfaction. ‘“‘Isn’t that
typical of the East ? ‘You ask for cigars and they sell you
fountain-pens. No honesty, no sense of fair trade.”

‘“‘ Miss Waddington was looking very charming at dinner,
I thought,” said George, timidly broaching the subject
nearest his heart.

“Yes, Pinch,” said Mr. Waddington, resuming his theme,
““my wife oppresses me.”

“How wonderfully that bobbed hair suits Miss Wadding-
ton.”

“T don’t know if you noticed a pie-faced fellow with an
eyeglass and a toothbrush moustache at dinner? That
was Lord Hunstanton. He keeps telling me things about
etiquette.”’

“Very kind of him,” hazarded George.

Mr. Waddington eyed him in a manner that convinced
him that he had said the wrong thing. v

“What do you mean, kind of him? It’s officious and
impertinent.” He isa pest,” said Mr. Waddington. ‘ They
wouldn’t stand for him in Arizona. They would put
hydrophobia skunks in his bed. What does a man need
with etiquette ? As long as a man is fearless and upstand-
ing and can shoot straight and look the world in the eye,
what does it matter if he uses the wrong fork ? ”

“ Exactly.”

“Or wears the wrong sort of hat?”

4

46 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“I particularly admired the hat which Miss Waddington
was wearing when I first saw her,” said George. “It
was of some soft material and of a light brown colour
and...”

“My wife—I am still speaking of my second wife. My
first, poor soul, is dead—sticks this Hunstanton guy on to
me, and for financial reasons, darn it, I am unable to give
him the good sock on the nose to which all my better
instincts urge me. And guess what she’s got into her head
now.”

“T can’t imagine.”

““She wants Molly to marry the fellow.”

*‘ T should not advise that,” said George seriously. ‘‘ No,
no, I am strongly opposed to that. So many of these
Anglo-American marriages turn out unhappily.”

“I am a man of broad sympathies and a very acute
sensibility,’’ began Mr. Waddington, apropos, apparently,
of nothing.

“‘ Besides,” said George, “‘I did not like the man’s
looks.”

“What man ? ”

“Lord Hunstanton.”

“Don’t talk of that guy! He gives me a pain in the
neck.”

““ Me, too,”’ said George. ‘“‘ And I was saying. . .”

“‘ Shall I tell you something ? ”’ said Mr. Waddington.

“What ? ”

“My second wife—not my first—wants Molly to marry
him. Did you notice him at dinner ? ”

“‘T did,” said George patiently. ‘‘ And I did not like
his looks. He looked to me cold and sinister, the sort of
man who might break the heart of an impulsive young girl.
What Miss Waddington wants, I feel convinced, is a hus-
band who would give up everything for her—a man who
would sacrifice his heart’s desire to bring one smile to her
face—a man who would worship her, set her in a shrine,
make it his only aim in life to bring her sunshine and
happingss.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 47

“‘ My wife,” said Mr. Waddington, ‘‘ is much too stout.”

“T beg your pardon? ”

“Much too stout.”

“Miss Waddington, if I may say so, has a singularly
beautiful figure.”

“Too much starchy food, and no exercise—that’s the
trouble. What my wife needs is a year on a ranch, riding
over the prairies in God’s sunshine.”

“ T happened to catch sight of Miss Waddington the other
day in riding costume. I thought it suited her admirably.
So many girls look awkward in riding-breeches, but Miss
Waddington was charming. The costume seemed to
accentuate what I might describe as that strange boyish
Jauntiness of carriage which, to my mind, is one of Miss
Waddington’s chief .. .”

“ And I’ll have her doing it before long. As a married
man, Winch—twice married, but my first wife, poor thing,
passed away some years back—let me tell you something.
To assert himself with his wife, to bend her to his will, if
I may put it that way, a man needs complete financial
independence. It is no use trying to bend your wife to
your will when five minutes later you have got to try and
wheedle twenty-five cents out of her for a cigar. Complete
financial independence is essential, Pinch, and that is what
Iam on the eve of achieving. Some little time back, having
raised a certain sum of money—we need not go into the
methods which I employed to do so—I bought a large
block of stock in a Hollywood Motion-Picture Company.
Have you ever heard of the Finer and Better Motion
Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal.? Let me tell you
that you will. It is going to be big, and I shall very shortly
make an enormous fortune.”

‘Talking of the motion-pictures,” said George, ‘I do
not deny that many of the women engaged in that industry
are superficially attractive, but what I do maintain is that
they lack Miss Waddington’s intense purity of expression.
To me Miss Waddington seems like some . . .”

“I shall clean up big. It is only a question of time.”

48 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“The first thing anyone would notice on seeing Miss
Waddington .. .”

‘“‘ Thousands and thousands of dollars. Andthen...

“A poet has spoken of a young girl as ‘standing with
reluctant feet where the brook and river meet... .’”’

Mr. Waddington shook his head.

“It isn’t only meat. What causes the real trouble is
the puddings. It stands to reason that if a woman insists
on cramming herself with rich stuff like what we were having
to-night she is bound to put on weight. If I’ve said it
once, I’ve said it a hundred times... .”

What Mr. Waddington was about to say for the hundred
and first time must remain one of the historic mysteries.
For, even as he drew in breath the better to say it, the door
opened and a radiant vision appeared. Mr. Waddington
stopped in mid-sentence, and George’s heart did three back-
somersaults and crashed against his front teeth.

“‘ Mother sent me down to see what had become of you,”
said Molly.

Mr. Waddington got about half-way towards a look of
dignity.

“IT am not aware, my dear child,” he said, “ that any-
thing has ‘ become of me.’ I merely snatched the oppor-
tunity of having a quiet talk with this young friend of mine
from the West.”

“Well, you can’t have quiet talks with your young
friends when you’ve got a lot of important people to
dinner.”

“Important people!’ Mr. Waddington snorted sternly.
“A bunch of super-fatted bits of bad news! In God’s
country they would be lynched on sight.”

“Mr. Brewster Bodthorne has been asking for you
particularly. He wants to play checkers.”

“ Hell,” said Mr. Waddington, with the air of quot-
ing something out of Dante, ‘‘is full of Brewster Bod-
thornes.”’

Molly put her arms round her father’s neck and kissed
him fondly—a proceeding which drew from George a low,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 49

sharp how! of suffering like the bubbling cry of some strong
swimmer in his agony. There is a limit to what the flesh
can bear.

“ Darling, you must be good. Up you go at once and
be very nice to everybody. I’ll stay here and entertain
Mr.——”

“His name is Pinch,” said Mr. Waddington, rising
reluctantly and making for the door. ‘‘I met him out
on the side-walk where men are men. Get him to tell you
all about the West. I can’t remember when I’ve ever
heard a man talk so arrestingly. Mr. Winch has held me
spell-bound. Positively spell-bound. And my name,” he
concluded, a little incoherently, groping for the door-
handle, “is Sigsbee Horatio Waddington and I don’t care
who knows it.”

§3

The chief drawback to being a shy man is that in the
actual crises of rea] life you are a very different person
from the dashing and resourceful individual whom you
have pictured in your solitary day-dreams. George Finch,
finding himself in the position in which he had so often
yearned to be—alone with the girl he loved, felt as if his
true self had been suddenly withdrawn and an incompetent
understudy substituted at the last moment.

The George with whom he was familiar in day-dreams
was a splendid fellow—graceful, thoroughly at his ease, and
full of the neatest sort of ingratiating conversation. He
looked nice, and you could tell by the way he spoke that
he was nice. Clever, beyond a doubt—you knew that at
once by his epigrams—but not clever in that repellent,
cold-hearted modern fashion : for, no matter how brilliantly
his talk sparkled, it was plain all the while that his heart
was in the right place and that, despite his wonderful
gifts, there was not an atom of conceit in his composition.
His eyes had an attractive twinkle: his mouth curved
from time to time in an alluring smile: his hands were cool
and artistic: and his shirt-front did not bulge. , George,

50 THE SMALL BACHELOR

in short, as he had imagined himself in his day-dreams, was
practically the answer to the Maiden’s Prayer.

How different was this loathly changeling who now stood
on one leg in the library of Number 16 Seventy-Ninth
Street, East. In the first place, the fellow had obviously
not brushed his hair for several days. Also, he had omitted
to wash his hands, and something had caused them to
swell up and turn scarlet. Furthermore, his trousers
bagged at the knees: his tie was moving up towards his
left ear: and his shirt-front protruded hideously like the
chest of a pouter pigeon. A noisome sight.

Still, looks are not everything: and if this wretched
creature had been able to talk one-tenth as well as the
George of the day-dreams, something might yet have been
saved out of the wreck. But the poor blister was inarticu-
late as well. All he seemed able to do was clear his throat.
And what nice girl’s heart has ever been won by a series
of roopy coughs ?

And he could not even achieve a reasonably satisfactory
expression. When he tried to relax his features (such as
they were) into a charming smile, he merely grinned weakly.
When he forced himself not to grin, his face froze into a
murderous scowl.

But it was his inability to speak that was searing George’s
soul. Actually, since the departure of Mr. Waddington,
the silence had lasted for perhaps six seconds: but to
George Finch it seemed like a good hour. He goaded
himself to utterance.

“My name,” said George, speaking in a low, husky
voice, “is not Pinch.”

“Isn’t it?” said the girl. ‘“‘ How jolly!”

“Nor Winch.”

“ Better still.”

“It is Finch. George Finch.”

“* Splendid ! ”

She seemed genuinely pleased. She beamed upon him
as if he had brought her good news from a distant land.

“Yous father,” proceeded George, not having anything

THE SMALL BACHELOR 51

to add by way of development of the theme but unable to
abandon it, “thought it was Pinch. Or Winch. But it
is not. It is Finch.”

His eye, roaming nervously about the room, caught hers
for an instant : and he was amazed to perceive that there
was in it nothing of that stunned abhorrence which he
felt his appearance and behaviour should rightly have
aroused in any nice-minded girl. Astounding though it
seemed, she appeared to be looking at him in a sort of
pleased, maternal way, as if he were a child she was rather
fond of. For the first time a faint far-off glimmer of light
shone upon George’s darkness. It would be too much to
say that he was encouraged, but out of the night that
covered him, black as the pit from pole to pole, there did
seem to sparkle for an instant a solitary star.

“How did you come to know father ?”’

George could answer that. He was all right if you asked
him questions. It was the having to invent topics of
conversation that baffled him.

‘“‘T met him outside the house: and when he found that
I came from the West he asked me in to dinner.”

“Do you mean he rushed at you and grabbed you as
you were walking by?”

“Oh, no. I wasn’t walking by. I was—er—sort of
standing on the door-step. At least...”

“Standing on the door-step? Why?”

George’s ears turned a riper red.

“Well, I was—er—coming, as it were, to pay a call.”

“A call?”

“Yes.”

“On mother ? ”

“Qn you.”

The girl’s eyes widened.

“On me?”

“To make inquiries.”

“What about ? ”

“Your dog.”

“IT don’t understand.”

52 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“ Well, I thought—result of the excitement—and nerve-
strain—I thought he might be upset.”

“Because he ran away, do you mean?”

66 Yes.”’

“You thought he would have a nervous break-down
because he ran away?”

‘“‘ Dangerous traffic,” explained George. ‘‘ Might have
been run over. Reaction. Nervous collapse.”

Woman’s intuition is a wonderful thing. There was
probably not an alienist in the land who, having listened
so far, would not have sprung at George and held him down
with one hand while with the other he signed the necessary
certificate of lunacy. But Molly Waddington saw deeper
into the matter. She was touched. As she realized that
this young man thought so highly of her that, despite his
painful shyness, he was prepared to try to worm his way
into her house on an excuse which even he must have
recognized as pure banana-oil, her heart warmed to him.
More than ever, she became convinced that George was a
lamb and that she wanted to stroke his head and straighten
his tie and make cooing noises to him.

“How very sweet of you,” she said.

“Fond of dogs,” mumbled George.

“You must be fond of dogs.”

“Are you fond of dogs?”

“Yes, I’m very fond of dogs.”

“So am I. Very fond of dogs.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Very fond of dogs. Some people are not fond
of dogs, but I am.”

And suddenly eloquence descended upon George Finch.
With gleaming eyes he broke out into a sort of Litany.
He began to talk easily and fluently.

“T am fond of Airedales and wire-haired terriers and
bull-dogs and Pekingese and Sealyhams and Alsatians and
fox-terriers and greyhounds and Aberdeens and West High-
lands and Cairns and Pomeranians and spaniels and schip-
perkes and pugs and Maltese and Yorkshires and borzois

THE SMALL BACHELOR 58

and bloodhounds and Bedlingtons and pointers and setters
and mastiffs and Newfoundlands and St. Bernards and
Great Danes and dachshunds and collies and chows and
poodles and...”

“I see,”’ said Molly. ‘‘ You’re fond of dogs.”

“Yes,” said George. ‘‘ Very fond of dogs.”

“So am I. There’s something about dogs.”

“Yes,” said George. ‘‘ Of course, there’s something
about cats, too.”

“Yes, isn’t there ? ”’

“‘ But, still, cats aren’t dogs.”

‘No, I’ve noticed that.”

There was a pause. With a sinking of the heart, for the
topic was one on which he felt he could rather spread him-
self, George perceived that the girl regarded the subject of
dogs as fully threshed out. He stood for awhile licking his
lips in thoughtful silence.

“‘So you come from the West?” said Molly.

ee Yes.”

“It must be nice out there.”

ee Yes.’’

“ Prairies and all that sort of thing.”

6é Yes.”’

“You aren’t a cowboy, are you?”

“No. I am an artist,’’ said George proudly.

“An artist? Paint pictures, you mean?”

ee Yes.”’

““Have you a studio ? ”

“Yes.”

ae Where ? a8

“Yes. I mean, near Washington Square. In a place
called the Sheridan.”

“‘The Sheridan? Really? Then perhaps you know
Mr. Beamish ? ”’

“Yes. Oh, yes. Yes.”

“‘He’s a dear, isn’t he? I’ve known him all my life.”

cé Yes.”’

“It must be jolly to be an artist.”

54 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“Yes.”

“T’d love to see some of your pictures.”

Warm thrills permeated George’s system.

“May I send you one of them ? ” he bleated.

“That’s awfully sweet of you.”

So uplifted was George Finch by this wholly unexpected
development that there is no saying what heights of
eloquence he might not now have reached, had he been
given another ten minutes of the girl’s uninterrupted
society. The fact that she was prepared to accept one of
his pictures seemed to bring them very close together.
He had never yet met anybody who would. For the first
time since their interview had begun he felt almost at his
ease.

Unfortunately, at this moment the door opened: and
like a sharp attack of poison-gas Mrs. Waddington floated
into the room.

“What are you doing down here, Molly ? ” she said.

She gave George one of those looks of hers, and his newly-
born sang-froid immediately turned blue at the roots.

“I’ve been talking to Mr. Finch, mother. Isn’t it inter-
esting—Mr. Finch is an artist. He paints pictures.”

Mrs. Waddington did not reply : for she had been struck
suddenly dumb by a hideous discovery. Until this moment
she had not examined George with any real closeness.
When she had looked at him before it had been merely
with the almost impersonal horror and disgust with which
any hostess looks at an excrescence who at the eleventh
hour horns in on one of her carefully planned dinners.
His face, though revolting, had had no personal message
for her.

But now it was different. Suddenly this young man’s
foul features had become fraught with a dreadful
significance. Subconsciously, Mrs. Waddington had been
troubled ever since she had heard them by the words
Molly had spoken in her bedroom: and now they shot to
the surface of her mind like gruesome things from the dark
depths pf some sinister pool. ‘The sort of man I think I

THE SMALL BACHELOR 55

should rather like,’ Molly had said, ‘would be a sort of
slimmish, smallish man with nice brown eyes and rather
gold-y, chestnutty hair.’ She stared at George. Yes!
He was slimmish. He was also smallish. His eyes, though
far from nice, were brown: and his hair was undeniably
of a chestnut hue.

‘Who sort of chokes and turns pink and twists his fingers
and makes funny noises and trips overhisfeet . . .’ Thus
had the description continued, and precisely thus was this
young man before her now behaving. For her gaze had
had the worst effect on George Finch, and seldom in his
career had he choked more throatily, turned a brighter
pink, twisted his fingers into a more intricate pattern, made
funnier noises and tripped more heartily over his feet than
he was doing now. Mrs. Waddington was convinced. It
had been no mere imaginary figure that Molly had described,
but a living, breathing pestilence—and this was he.

And he was an artist! Mrs. Waddington shuddered. Of
all the myriad individuals that went to make up the
kaleidoscopic life of New York, she disliked artists most.
They never had any money. They were dissolute and
feckless. They attended dances at Webster Hall in strange
costumes, and frequently played the ukelele. And this
man was one of them.

‘‘T suppose,” said Molly, “‘ we had better go upstairs ?”’

Mrs. Waddington came out of her trance.

“‘ You had better go upstairs,” she said, emphasizing the
pronoun in a manner that would have impressed itself upon
the least sensitive of men. George got it nicely.

“‘|—er—think, perhaps,’”’ he mumbled, “as it is—er—
getting late...”

“You aren’t going ?”’ said Molly, concerned.

“Certainly Mr. Finch is going,” said Mrs. Waddington :
and there was that in her demeanour which suggested that
at any moment she might place one hand on the scruff of
his neck and the other on the seat of his trousers and heave.
“If Mr. Finch has appointments that call him elsewhere,
we must not detain him. Good night, Mr. Finch,”

56 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“Good night. Thank you for a—er—very pleasant
evening.”

“It was most kay-eend of you to come,” said Mrs.
Waddington.

*““Do come again,” said Molly.

“Mr. Finch,” said Mrs. Waddington, “is no doubt a
very ba-husy man. Please go upstairs immediately, Molly.
Good na’eet, Mr. Finch.”

She continued to regard him in a manner hardly in
keeping with the fine old traditions of American hospitality.

“ Ferris,”’ she said, as the door closed.

“Madam ? ”

“On no pretext whatever, Ferris, is that person who
has just left to be admitted to the house again.”

“Very good, madam,” said the butler.

§ 4

It was a fair sunny morning next day when George
Finch trotted up the steps of Number 16 Seventy-Ninth
Street East, and pressed the bell. He was wearing his
dove-grey suit, and under his arm was an enormous canvas
wrapped in brown paper. After much thought he had
decided to present Molly with his favourite work, Hail,
Jocund Spring !—a picture representing a young woman,
scantily draped and obviously suffering from an advanced
form of chorea, dancing with lambs in a flower-speckled
field. At the moment which George had selected for her
portrayal, she had—to judge from her expression—yjust
stepped rather hard on a sharp stone. Still, she was George’s
masterpiece, and he intended to present her to Molly.

The door opened. Ferris, the butler, appeared.

“‘ All goods,’”’ said Ferris, regarding George dispassion-
ately, ‘‘must be delivered in the rear.”

George blinked.

“I want to see Miss Waddington.”

** Miss Waddington is not at home.”

“Can I see Mr. Waddington ? ’”’ asked George, accepting
the secqnd-best.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 57

“Mr. Waddington is not at home.”

George hesitated a moment before he spoke again. But
love conquers all.

“Can I see Mrs. Waddington ? ”

“Mrs. Waddington is not at home.”

As the butler spoke, there proceeded from the upper
regions of the house a commanding female voice that
inquired of an unseen Sigsbee how many times the speaker
had told him not to smoke in the drawing-room.

“But I can hear her,’’ George pointed out.

The butler shrugged his shoulders with an aloof gesture,
asif disclaiming all desire to go into these mysteries. His
look suggested that he thought George might possibly be
psychic.

“Mrs. Waddington is not at home,” he said once more.

There was a pause.

** Nice morning,” said George.

‘“‘The weather appears to be clement,” agreed Ferris.

George then tumbled backwards down the steps, and the
interview concluded.

CHAPTER FOUR
§ x

= LL me all,” said Hamilton Beamish.
George told him all. The unfortunate young
man was still looking licked to a splinter. For
several hours he had been wandering distractedly through
the streets of New York, and now he had crawled into
Hamilton Beamish’s apartment in the hope that a keener
mind than his own might be able to detect in the encompass-
ing clouds a silver lining which he himself had missed
altogether.

“‘ Let me get this clear,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. “ You
called at the house?”

6eé Yes.”

“And the butler refused to admit you? ”

“Yes.”

Hamilton Beamish regarded his stricken friend com-
passionately.

“My poor cloth-headed George,” he said, ‘‘ you appear
to have made a complete mess of things. By being
impetuous you have ruined everything. Why could you
not have waited and let me introduce you into this house
in a normal and straightforward fashion, in my capacity
of an old friend of the family ? I would have started you
right. As things are, you have allowed yourself to take
on the semblance of an outcast.”

“But when old Waddington invited me to dinner—
actually invited me to dinner... .”

“You should have kicked him in the eye and made good
your escape,” said Hamilton Beamish firmly. “Surely,
after all that I said to you about Sigsbee H. Waddington,
you were under no illusion that his patronage would make
you ppular in the home? Sigsbee H. Waddington is one

58

THE SMALL BACHELOR 59

of those men who have only to express a liking for anybody
to cause their wives to look on him as something out of the
Underworld. Sigsbee H. Waddington could not bring the
Prince of Wales home to dinner and get away with it.
And when he drags in and lays on the mat a specimen—I
use the word in the kindliest spirit—like you, and does so,
moreover, five minutes before the start of a formal dinner-
party, thus upsetting the seating arrangements and leading
to black thoughts in the kitchen, can you blame his wife
for not fawning on you? And on top of that you pretend
to be an artist.”

“IT am an artist,” said George, with a flicker of spirit.
It was a subject on which he held strong views.

“The point isa debatable one. And, anyhow, you should
have concealed it from Mrs. Waddington. A woman of
her type looks on artists as blots on the social scheme. I
told you she judged her fellow-creatures entirely by their
balance at the bank.”

“IT have plenty of money.”

“‘ How was she to know that ? You tell her you are an
artist, and she naturally imagines you .. .”

The telephone rang shrilly, interrupting Mr. Beamish’s
flow of thought. There was an impatient frown on his face
as he unhooked the receiver, but a moment later this had
passed away and, when he spoke, it was in a kindly and
indulgent tone.

““ Ah, Molly, my child!”

“Molly!” cried George.

Hamilton Beamish ignored the exclamation.

“Yes,” he said. ‘ He is a great friend of mine.”

““Me?” said George.

Hamilton Beamish continued to accord to him that
complete lack of attention characteristic of the efficient
telephoner when addressed while at the instrument.

“Yes, he has been telling me about it. He’s here
now.”

‘‘ Does she want me to speak to her ? ” quavered George.

“ Certainly, I’ll come at once.”

60 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Hamilton Beamish replaced the receiver, and stood for
awhile in thought.

“What did she say ?” asked George, deeply moved.

‘“‘ This is interesting,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

“‘ What did she say?”

“‘ This causes me to revise my views to some extent.”

““What did she say?”

*‘ And yet I might have foreseen it.”

““What did she say ?”’

Hamilton Beamish rubbed his chin meditatively.

“The mind of a girl works oddly.”

“What did she say?”

“That was Molly Waddington,” said Hamilton Beamish.

“What did she say?”

“I am by no means sure,’”’ said Mr. Beamish regarding
George owlishly through his spectacles, “‘ that, after all,
everything has not happened for the best. I omitted to
take into my calculations the fact that what has occurred
would naturally give you in the eyes of a warm-hearted
girl, surrounded normally by men with incomes in six
figures, a certain romantic glamour. Any girl with nice
instincts must inevitably be attracted to a penniless artist
whom her mother forbids her to see.”

““What did she say ?”’

‘‘ She asked me if you were a friend of mine.”

“And then what did she say? ”’

“‘ She told me that her stepmother had forbidden you the
house and that she had been expressly ordered never to see
you again.”

“‘And what did she say after that?”

“She asked me to come up to the house and have a
talk.”

““ About me? ”

“So I imagine.”

“You're going ? ”

“At once.”

“Hamilton,” said George in a quivering voice, ‘“‘ Hamil-
ton, old man, pitch it strong!”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 61

“‘You mean, speak enthusiastically on your behalf ? ”

“‘T mean just that. How well you put these things,
Hamilton |”

Hamilton Beamish took up his hat and placed it on his
head.

“It is strange,’’ he said meditatively, ‘‘ that I should be
assisting you in this matter.”

“It’s your good heart,’”’ said George. ‘‘ You have a
heart of gold.”

“You have fallen in love at first sight, and my views on
love at first sight are well known.”

“‘ They’re all wrong.”

““ My views are never wrong.”

*‘T don’t mean wrong exactly,” said George with syco-
phantic haste. ‘“‘I mean that in certain cases love at first
sight is the only thing.”

“Love should be a reasoned emotion.”

“‘ Not if you suddenly see a girl like Molly Waddington.”

‘“‘ When I marry,” said Hamilton Beamish, “ it will be the
result of a carefully calculated process of thought. I shall
first decide after cool reflection that I have reached the
age at which it is best for me to marry. I shall then run
over the list of my female friends till I have selected one
whose mind and tastes are in harmony with mine. I shall
then .. .”

“ Aren’t you going to change?” said George.

“Change what ? ”

“Your clothes. If you are going to see Her...”

“IT shall then,” proceeded Hamilton Beamish, ‘‘ watch
her carefully for a considerable length of time in order to
assure myself that I have not allowed passion to blind me
to any faults in her disposition. After that...”

“You can’t possibly call on Miss Waddington in those
trousers,” said George. ‘‘ And your shirt does not match
your socks. You must...”

“ After that, provided in the interval I have not observed
any more suitable candidate for my affections, I shall go
to her and in a few simple words ask her to be my wife.

5

62 THE SMALL BACHELOR

I shall point out that my income is sufficient for two, that
my morals are above reproach, that .. .”

“‘Haven’t you a really nice suit that’s been properly
pressed and brushed and a rather newer pair of shoes and a
less floppy sort of hat and...”

“. .. that my disposition is amiable and my habits
regular. And she and I will settle down to the Marriage
Sane.”’

“How about your cuffs? ” said George.

“What about my cuffs?”

“‘ Are you really going to see Miss Waddington in frayed
cuffs?”

6¢ I am.”’

George had nothing more to say. It was sacrilege, but
there seemed no way of preventing it.

§2

As Hamilton Beamish, some quarter of an hour later,
climbed in a series of efficient movements up the stairs of
the green omnibus which was waiting in Washington
Square, the summer afternoon had reached its best and
sweetest. A red-blooded, one hundred per cent American
sun still shone warmly down from a sky of gleaming azure,
but there had stolen into the air a hint of the cool of even-
ing. It was the sort of day when Tin Pan Alley lyric-
writers suddenly realize that ‘love ’ rhymes with ‘ skies
above,’ and rush off, snorting, to turn out the song-hit of
a lifetime. Sentimentality was abroad: and gradually,
without his being aware of it, its seeds began to plant them-
selves in the stony and unpromising soil of Hamilton
Beamish’s bosom.

Yes, little by little, as the omnibus rolled on up the
Avenue, there began to burgeon in Hamilton Beamish a
mood of gentle tolerance for his species. He no longer
blamed so whole-heartedly the disposition of his fellow-
men to entertain towards the opposite sex on short
acquaintance a warmth of emotion which could be scientifi-
cally justified only by a long and intimate knowledge of

THE SMALL BACHELOR 68

character. For the first time he began to debate within
himself whether there was not something to be said for a
man who, like George Finch, plunged headlong into love
with a girl to whom he had never even spoken.

And it was at this precise moment—just, dramatically
enough, when the bus was passing Twenty-Ninth Street
with its pretty and suggestive glimpse of the Little Church
Round The Corner—that he noticed for the first time the
girl in the seat across the way.

She was a girl of chic and dan. One may go still further
—a girl of espiéglerte and ze ne sats quot. She was dressed,
as Hamilton Beamish’s experienced eye noted.in one swift
glance, in a delightful two-piece suit composed of a smart
coat in fine quality repp, lined throughout with crépe-de-
chine, over a dainty long-sleeved frock of figured Marocain
prettily pleated at the sides and finished at the neck with
a small collar and kilted frill: a dress which, as every
schoolboy knows, can be had in beige, grey, mid-grey, opal,
snuff, powder, burnt wood, puce, brown, bottle, almond,
navy, black, and dark Saxe. Her colour was dark
Saxe.

Another glance enabled Hamilton Beamish to take in her
hat. It was, he perceived, a becoming hat in Yedda Visca
straw, trimmed and bound with silk petersham ribbon,
individual without being conspicuous, artistic in line and
exquisite in style: and from beneath it there strayed a
single curl of about the colour of a good Pekingese dog.
Judging the rest of her hair by the light of this curl, Hamil-
ton Beamish deduced that, when combing and dressing it,
she just moistened the brush with a little scalpoline, thus
producing a gleamy mass, sparkling with life and possessing
that incomparable softness, freshness and luxuriance, at
the same time toning each single hair to grow thick, long
and strong. No doubt she had read advertisements of
the tonic in the papers and now, having bought a bottle,
was seeing how healthy and youthful her hair appeared
after this delightful, refreshing dressing.

Her shoes were of black patent-leather, her stockings of

é4 THE SMALL BACHELOR

steel-grey. She had that schoolgirl complexion and the
skin you love to touch.

All these things the trained eye of Hamilton Beamish
noted, swivelling rapidly sideways and swivelling rapidly
back again. But it was her face that he noted most
particularly. It was just the sort of face which, if he had
not had his policy of Sane Love all carefully mapped
out, would have exercised the most disturbing effect on
his emotions. Even as it was, this strong, competent
man could not check, as he alighted from the bus at
Seventy-Ninth Street, a twinge of that wistful melancholy
which men feel when they are letting a good thing get
away from them.

Sad, reflected Hamilton Beamish, as he stood upon the
steps of Number 16 and prepared to ring the bell, that he
would never see this girl again. Naturally, a man of his
stamp was not in love at first sight, but nevertheless he
did not conceal it from himself that nothing would suit
him better than to make her acquaintance and, after
careful study of her character and disposition, possibly
discover in a year or two that it was she whom Nature had
intended for his mate.

It was at this point in his reflections that he perceived
her standing at his elbow.

There are moments when even the coolest-headed
efficiency expert finds it hard to maintain his poise. Hamil-
ton Beamish was definitely taken aback: and, had he been
a lesser man, one would have said that he became for an
instant definitely pop-eyed. Apart from the fact that he
had been thinking of her and thinking of her tenderly,
there was the embarrassment of standing side by side with
a strange girl on a doorstep. In such a crisis it is very
difficult for a man to know precisely how to behave.
Should he endeavour to create the illusion that he is not
aware of her presence? Or should he make some chatty
remark? And, if a chatty remark, what chatty remark ?

riamilton Beamish was still grappling with this problem,
when the girl solved it for him. Suddenly screwing up

THE SMALL BACHELOR 65

a face which looked even more attractive at point-blank
range than it had appeared in profile, she uttered the
exclamation ‘Oo1’

‘“‘Oo!’’ said this girl.

For a moment, all Hamilton Beamish felt was that almost
ecstatic relief which comes over the man of sensibility when
he finds that a pretty girl has an attractive voice. Too
many times in his career he had admired girls from afar,
only to discover, when they spoke, that they had voices
like peacocks calling up the rain. The next instant, how-
ever, he had recognized that his companion was suffering,
and his heart was filled with a blend of compassion and zeal.
Her pain aroused simultaneously the pity of the man and
the efficiency of the efficiency expert.

‘You have something in your eye? ”’ he said.

‘‘ A bit of dust or something.”

‘Permit me,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

One of the most difficult tasks that can confront the
ordinary man is the extraction of foreign bodies from the
eye of a perfect stranger of the oppositesex. But Hamilton
Beamish was not an ordinary man. Barely ten seconds
later, he was replacing his handkerchief in his pocket and
the girl was blinking at him gratefully.

““Thank you ever so much,” she said.

‘Not at all,” said Hamilton Beamish.

‘“‘A doctor couldn’t have done it more neatly.”

“It’s just a knack,”’

“Why is it,’’ asked the girl, “‘ that, when you get a
speck of dust in your eye the size of a pin-point, it seems as
big as all out-doors ? ”’

Hamilton Beamish could answer that. The subject was
one he had studied.

“The conjunctiva, a layer of mucous membrane which
lines the back of the eyelids and is reflected on to the front
of the globe, this reflection forming the fornix, is extremely
sensitive. This is especially so at the point where the
tarsal plates of fibrous tissue are attached to the orbital
margin by the superior and inferior palpebral ligaments.”

66 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘I see,” said the girl.

There was a pause.

‘‘Are you calling on Mrs, Waddington ?’’ asked the

irl.
a On Miss Waddington.”

**I’ve never met her.”’

**'You don’t know the whole family, then? ”

‘‘No. Only Mrs. Waddington. Would you mind

ringing the bell? ”’

Hamilton Beamish pressed the button.

‘*T saw you on the omnibus,”’ he said.

‘Did you? ”’

‘‘Yes. I was sitting in the next seat.”

‘* How odd!”’

‘It’s a lovely day, isn’t it.”

‘* Beautiful.’’

‘* The sun.”

“Yes.”

‘“‘The sky.”

“Yes.”

“‘T like the summer.”’

**So do I.”

“When it’s not too hot.”

€¢ Yes.”’

‘‘ Though, as a matter of fact,’’ said Hamilton Beamish,
‘‘T always say that what one objects to is not the heat but
the humidity.”

Which simply goes to prove that even efficiency experts,
when they fall in love at first sight, can babble like any
man of inferior intellect in thesame circumstances. Strange
and violent emotions were racking Hamilton Beamish’s
bosom: and, casting away the principles of a lifetime,
he recognized without a trace of shame that love had come
to him at last—not creeping scientifically into his soul,
as he had supposed it would, but elbowing its way in with
the Berserk rush of a commuter charging into the five-
fifteen. Yes, he wasin love. And it is proof of the com-
pleteness with which passion had blunted his intellectual

THE SMALL BACHELOR 67

faculties that he was under the impression that in the recent
exchange of remarks he had been talking rather well.

The door opened. Ferris appeared. He looked at the
girl, not with the cold distaste which he had exhibited
earlier in the day towards George Finch, but with a certain
paternal affection. Ferris measured forty-six round the
waist, but Beauty still had its appeal for him.

‘‘Mrs. Waddington desired me to say, miss,’’ he said,
‘that an appointment of an urgent nature has called her
elsewhere, rendering it impossible for her to see you this
afternoon.”

‘‘She might have phoned me,” the girl complained.

Ferris allowed one eyebrow to flicker momentarily, con-
veying the idea, that, while he sympathized, a spirit of
loyalty forbade him to join in criticism of his employer.

‘‘Mrs. Waddington wished to know if it would be

convenient to you, miss, if she called upon you to-morrow
at five o'clock ?”’

‘All right.”
‘Thank you, miss. Miss Waddington is expecting you,
sir.”

Hamilton Beamish continued to stare after the girl, who,
with a friendly nod in his direction, had begun to walk
light-heartedly out of his life along the street.

‘Who is that young lady, Ferris? ’’ he asked.

**I could not say, sir.”

“Why couldn’t you? Youseemed to know her just now.”

“No, sir. I had never seen the young lady before.
Mrs. Waddington, however, had mentioned that she would
be calling at this hour and instructed me to give the message
which I delivered.”

““Didn’t Mrs. Waddington say who was calling ?”’

“Yes, sir. The young lady.”

‘“‘Ass{’’ said Hamilton Beamish. But even he was not
strong man enough to say it aloud. ‘‘I mean, didn’t she
tell you the young lady’s name? ”’

“No, sir. If you will step this way, sir, I will conduct
you to Miss Waddington, who is in the library.’”

68 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘It seems funny that Mrs. Waddington did not tell you
the young lady’s name,” brooded Hamilton Beamish.
‘Very humorous, sir,”’ agreed the butler indulgently.

§ 3

‘‘Oh, Jimmy, it was sweet of you to come,”’ said Molly.

Hamilton Beamish patted her hand absently. He was
too preoccupied to notice the hateful name by which she
had addressed him.

‘‘T have had a wonderful experience,’’ he said.

**So have I. I think I’m in love.”

‘‘IT have given the matter as close attention as has
been possible, in the limited time at my disposal,’”’ said
Hamilton Beamish, ‘‘and I have reached the conclusion
that I, too, am in love.”’

‘I think I am in love with your friend George Finch.”’

‘‘T am in love with ...’’ Hamilton Beamish paused.
**I don’t know her name. She is a most charming girl.
I met her coming up here on the bus, and we talked for
awhile on the front door-steps. I took something out of
her eye.”’

Molly stared incredulously.

** You have fallen in love with a girl and you don’t know
who she is? But I thought you always said that love
was a reasoned emotion and all that.”

‘** One’s views alter,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ A man’s
intellectual perceptions do not stand still. Onedevelops.”’

*‘I was never so surprised in my life.”

“‘ It came as a complete surprise to me,” said Hamilton
Beamish, ‘It is excessively aggravating that I do not
know her name nor where she lives nor anything about her
except that she appears to be a friend—or at least an
acquaintance—of your step-mother.”’

‘“Qh, she knows mother, does she? ”’

“Apparently. She was calling here by appointment.”

“All sorts of weird people call on mother. She is
honorary secretary to about a hundred societies.”

“Thijs girl was of medium height, with an extremely

THE SMALL BACHELOR 69

graceful figure and bright brown hair. She wore a two-
piece suit with a coat of fine quality repp over a long-
sleeved frock of figured Marocain pleated at the sides and
finished at the neck with a small collar and kilted frill.
Her hat was of Yedda Visca straw, trimmed and bound with
silk petersham ribbon. She had patent-leather shoes, silk
stockings, and eyes of tender grey like the mists of sunrise
floating over some magic pool of Fairyland. Does the
description suggest anybody to you? ”’

‘No, I don’t think so—She sounds nice.’’

“‘ She is nice. I gazed into those eyes only for a moment,
but I shall never forget them. They were deeper than the
depth of waters stilled at even.”’

‘*I could ask mother who she is.”’

“I should be greatly obliged if you would do so,” said
Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ Mention that it is some one upon
whom she is to call at five o’clock to-morrow, and telephone
me the name and address. Oh, to seize her and hold her
close to me and kiss her again and again and again! And
now, child, tell me of yourself. I think you mentioned
that you also were in love.”

“Yes. With George Finch.”

“A capital fellow.”

““ He’s a lambkin,’”’ emended Molly warmly.

“‘ A lambkin, if you prefer it.”

"And I asked you to come here to-day to tell me what
I ought to do. You see, mother doesn’t like him.”

“So I gathered.”

“* She has forbidden him the house.”

“Yes,”

“I suppose it’s because he has no money.”

Hamilton Beamish was on the point of mentioning that
George had an almost indecent amount of money, but he
checked himself. Who was he that he should destroy a
young girl’s dreams? It was as a romantic and penniless
artist that George Finch had won this girl’s heart. It
would be cruel to reveal the fact that he was rich and the
worst artist in New York.

70 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“Your stepmother,” he agreed, “‘is apt to see eye to
eye with Bradstreet in her estimation of her fellows.’’

“I don’t care if he hasn’t any money,” said Molly.
** You know that, when I marry, I get that pearl necklace
that father bought for mother. It’s being held in trust
forme. I can sell it and get thousands of dollars, so that
we shall be as right as anything.”

** Quite.”’

“‘ But, of course, I don’t want to make a runaway mar-
riage if I can help it. I want to be married with brides-
maids and cake and presents and photographs in the
rotogravure section and everything.”

‘‘ Naturally.”

‘‘So the point fs, mother must learn to love George.
Now listen, Jimmy dear. Mother will be going to see her
palmist, very soon—she’s always going to palmists, you
know.”

Hamilton Beamish nodded. He had not been aware
of this trait in Mrs. Waddington’s character, but he could
believe anything of her. Now that he came to consider the
matter, he recognized that Mrs. Waddington was precisely
the sort of woman who, in the intervals of sitting in the
salons of beauty specialists with green mud on her face,
would go to palmists.

“‘ And what you must do is to go to this palmist before
mother gets there and bribe her to say that my only
happiness is bound up with a brown-haired artist whose
name begins with a G.”’

“I scarcely think that even a palmist would make Mrs.
Waddington believe that.”’

“She believes everything Madame Eulalie sees in the
crystal.”’

“But hardly that.”

“No, perhaps you’re right. Well, then, you must get
Madame Eulalie at least to steer mother off Lord Hun-
stanton. Last night, she told me in so many words that
she wanted me to marry him. He’s always here, and it’s

awtul?’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 71

**I could do that, of course,”

*‘ And you will? ”’

** Certainly.”

“You're a darling. I should think she would do it for
ten dollars.”

‘‘Twenty at the outside.”

“Then that’s settled. I knew I could rely on you.
By the way, will you tell George something quite casually ?”’

‘‘ Anything you wish.”

** Just mention to him that, if he happens to be strolling
in Central Park to-morrow afternoon near the Zoo, we
might run into each other.”’

‘Very well.”

‘* And now,”’ said Molly, ‘‘ tell me all about George and
how you came to know one another and what you thought
of him when you first saw him and what he likes for break-
fast and what he talks about and what he said about

3

me.

§ 4

It might have been expected that the passage of time,
giving opportunity for quiet reflection on the subject of
the illogical nature of the infatuation in which he had
allowed himself to become involved, would have brought
remorse to so clear and ruthless a thinker as Hamilton
Beamish. It was not so, but far otherwise. As Hamilton
Beamish sat in the ante-chamber of Madame Eulalie’s
office next day, he gloried in his folly: and when his better
self endeavoured to point out to him that what had hap-
pened was that he had allowed himself to be ensnared by
a girl’s face—that is to say, by a purely fortuitous arrange-
ment of certain albuminoids and fatty molecules, all
Hamilton Beamish did was to tell his better self to put
its head in a bag. He was in love, and he liked it. He
was in love, and proud of it. His only really coherent
thought as he waited in the ante-room was a resolve to
withdraw the booklet on ‘ The Marriage Sane’ from circula-
tion and try his hand at writing a poem or two. »

72 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘Madame Eulalie will see you now, sir,’”’ announced
the maid, breaking in upon his reverie.

Hamilton Beamish entered theinnerroom. And, having
entered it, stopped dead.

““You!’’ he exclaimed.

The girl gave that fleeting pat at her hair which is
always Woman's reaction to the unexpected situation.
And Hamilton Beamish, looking at that hair emotionally,
perceived that he had been right in his yesterday’s surmise.
It was, as he had suspected, a gleamy mass, sparkling with
life and possessing that incomparable softness, freshness
and luxuriance.

‘“Why, how do you do?”’ said the girl.

**I’m fine,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

‘We seem fated to meet.”

‘‘And I’m not quarrelling with fate.”

ee No ? 33

*‘No,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘“‘ Fancy it being you!”’

** Fancy who being me? ”’

‘“‘Fancy you being you.’’ It occurred to him that he
was not making himself quite clear. ‘‘I mean, I was
sent here with a message for Madame Eulalie, and she
turns out to be you.”

**A message ? Who from? ”

“‘From whom ?”’ corrected Hamilton Beamish. Even
in the grip of love, a specialist on Pure English remains a
specialist on Pure English.

“*That’s what I said—Who from ? ”

Hamilton Beamish smiled an indulgent smile. These
little mistakes could be corrected later—possibly on the
honeymoon.

‘“‘From Molly Waddington. She asked me to.. .”

*‘Oh, then you don’t want me to read your hand?”

**There is nothing I want more in this world,’’ said
Hamilton Beamish warmly, ‘‘ than to have you read my
hand.” :

“* T don’t have to read it to tell your character, of course,’’
said the girl. ‘I can see that at a glance.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 78

** You can?”

‘Oh, certainly. You have a strong, dominating nature
and a keen incisive mind. You have great breadth of
vision, iron determination, and marvellous insight. Yet
with it all you are at heart gentle, kind and lovable ; deeply
altruistic and generous to a fault. You have it in you
to be a leader of men. You remind me of Julius Cesar,
Shakespeare and Napoleon Buonaparte.”’

‘¢Tell me more,” said Hamilton Beamish.

** If you ever fell in love...”

‘Tf I ever fell in love...”

‘“‘If you ever fell in love,” said the girl, ere her
eyes to his and drawing a step closer, ‘‘ you would .

‘‘Mr. Delancy Cabot,’’ announced the maid.

‘* Oh, darn it !’’ said Madame Eulalie. ‘‘I forgot I had
an appointment. Send him in.”

‘“‘May I wait?’’ breathed Hamilton Beamish de-
voutly.

‘*Pleasedo. Ishan’t belong.” She turned to the door.
‘*Come in, Mr. Cabot.’

Hamilton Beamish wheeled round. A long, stringy
person was walking daintily into the room. He was
richly, even superbly, dressed in the conventional costume
of the popular clubman and pet of Society, He wore lav-
ender gloves and a carnation in his buttonhole, and a vast
expanse of snowy collar encircled a neck which suggested
that he might be a throw-back to some giraffe ancestor.
A pleasing feature of this neck was an Adam’s apple that
could have belonged to only one manof Hamilton Beamish’s
aquaintance,

“‘Garroway!’’ cried Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ What are
you doing here? And what the devil does this mas-
querade mean ?

The policeman seemed taken aback. His face became
as red as his wrists. But for the collar, which held him
in a grip of iron, his jaw would no doubt have fallen.

“I didn’t expect to find you here, Mr. Beamish,’ he
said apologetically.

LF

74 THE SMALL BACHELOR

**I didn’t expect to find you here, calling yourself De
Courcy Bellville.”

‘** Delancy Cabot, sir.”

**Delancy Cabot, then.”

‘I like the name,’ urged the policeman. ‘I saw it
in a book.”

The girl was breathing hard.

‘‘Is this man a policeman ? ”’ she cried.

‘Yes, he is,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ His name
is Garroway, and I am teaching him to write poetry. And
what I want to know,” he thundered, turning on the
unhappy man, whose Adam’s apple was now leaping like
a young lamb in the spring time, “‘is what are you doing
here, interrupting a—interrupting a—in short, interrupting,
when you ought either to be about your constabulary duties
or else sitting quietly at home studying John Drinkwater.
That,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, ‘‘is what I want to know.”

Officer Garroway coughed.

‘* The fact is, Mr. Beamish, I did not know that Madame
Eulalie was a friend of yours.”

‘‘ Never mind whose friend she is.”

‘‘ But it makes all the difference, Mr. Beamish. I can
now go back to headquarters and report that Madame
Eulalie is above suspicion. You see, sir, I was sent here
by my superior officers to effect a cop.”

‘‘What do you mean, effect a cop?”

‘*To make an arrest, Mr. Beamish.’’

“Then do not say ‘effect a cop.’ Purge yourself of
these vulgarisms, Garroway.”’

‘Yes, sir. I will indeed, sir.”

“Aim at the English Pure.”’

*““Yes, sir. Most certainly, Mr. Beamish.”

*‘ And what on earth do you mean by saying that you
were sent here to arrest this lady? ”’

“It has been called to the attention of my superior
officers, Mr. Beamish, that Madame Eulalie is in the habit
of telling fortunes for a monetary consideration. Against
the law, sir.”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 75

Hamilton Beamish snorted.

‘‘ Ridiculous! If that’s the law, alter it.”

‘IT will do my best, sir.”’

‘* I have had the privilege of watching Madame Eulalie
engaged upon her art, and she reveals nothing but the most
limpid truth. So go back to your superior officers and tell
them to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.’’

‘Yes, sir. I will, sir.’”’

‘‘ And now leave us. We would be alone.”

‘‘Yes, Mr. Beamish,” said Officer Garroway humbly.
‘* At once, Mr. Beamish.”’

For some moments after the door had closed, the girl
stood staring at Hamilton Beamish with wondering eyes.

‘‘Was that man really a policeman ? ”’

‘“‘ He was.”

‘* And you handled him like that, and he said ‘ Yes, sir ! ’
and ‘No, sir!’ and crawled out on all fours.’”’ She drew
a deep breath. ‘‘ It seems to me that you are just the
sort of friend a lonely girl needs in this great city.”’

‘Tam only too delighted that I was able to be of service.”

** Service is right! Mr. Beamish...”

** My first name is Hamilton.”

She looked at him, amazed.

“You are not the Hamilton Beamish? Not the man
who wrote the Booklets ? ”’

“‘T have written a few booklets,”

*‘ Why, you're my favourite author! If it hadn’t been
for you, I would still be mouldering in a little one-horse
town where there wasn’t even a good soda-fountain.
But I got hold of a couple of your Are You In A Groove ?
things, and I packed up my grip and came nght along
to New York to lead the larger life. If I’d known yester-
day that you were Hamilton Beamish, I’d have kissed
you on the doorstep! ”’

It was Hamilton Beamish’s intention to point out that
a curtained room with a closed door was an even more
suitable place for such a demonstration, but, even as he
tried to speak, there gripped him for the first time dn his

76 THE SMALL BACHELOR

life a strange, almost George Finch-like, shyness. One
deprecates the modern practice of exposing the great,
but candour compels one to speak out and say that at
this juncture Hamilton Beamish emitted a simpering giggle
and began to twiddle his fingers.

The strange weakness passed, and he was himself again.
He adjusted his glasses firmly.

‘“Would you,” he asked, ‘‘could you possibly .,.
Do you think you could manage to come and lunch some-
where to-morrow ? ”’

The girl uttered an exclamation of annoyance.

“Isn't that too bad!’’ she said. ‘“‘I can't.”

‘‘The day after? ”’

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I shall be off the map for
three weeks. I’ve got to jump on a train to-morrow and
go visit the old folks back in East Gilead. It’s pop’s
birthday on Saturday, and I never miss it.’

“East Gilead ? ”’

‘‘TIdaho. You wouldn’t have heard of the place, but
it’s there.”

‘* But I have heard of it. A great friend of mine comes
from East Gilead.’

‘You don’t say! Who?”

‘‘A man named George Finch.”

She laughed amusedly.

“You don’t actually mean to tell me you know George
Finch ? ”’

“‘He is my most intimate friend.”

‘‘Then I trust for your sake,’’ said the girl, ‘“‘ that he
is not such a yap as he used to be.”

Hamilton Beamish reflected. Was George Finch a
yap? How precisely did one estimate the yaphood of
one’s friends ?

‘By the word ‘ yap’ you mean...”

““] mean a yap. The sort of fellow who couldn't say
Bo to a goose.”

Hamilton Beamish had never seen George Finch in con-
versation with a goose, but he thought he was a good

THE SMALL BACHELOR 77

enough judge of character to be able to credit him with the
ability to perform the very trivial deed of daring indicated.

“IT fancy New York has changed George,’’ he replied,
after reflection. ‘‘ In fact, now that I remember, it was
on more or less that very subject that I called to see you
in your professional capacity. The fact is, George Finch
has fallen violently in love with Molly Waddington, the
step-daughter of your client, Mrs. Waddington.”

“You don’t say! And I suppose he’s too shy to come
within a mile of her.”’

“On the contrary. The night before last he seems to
have forced his way into the house—you might say,
practically forced his way—and now Mrs. Waddington has
forbidden him to see Molly again, fearing that he will
spoil her plan of marrying the poor child to a certain Lord
Hunstanton.”

The girl stared.

‘You're right! George must have altered.”

** And we were wondering—Molly and I—if we could pos-
sibly induce you to stoop to a—shall I say a benevolent
little ruse. Mrs. Waddington is coming to see you to-day
at five, and it was Molly’s suggestion that I should sound
you as to whether you would consent to take a look in the
crystal and tell Mrs. Waddington that you see danger
threatening Molly from a dark man with an eyeglass.’

““ Of course.”’

“You will?”

“It isn’t much to do in return for all you have done
for me.”

“Thank you, thank you,’”’ said Hamilton Beamish.
“‘I knew, the moment I set eyes on you, that you were a
woman ina million. I wonder,—could you possibly come
to lunch one day after you return ? ”’

“Td love it.”

“‘T'll leave you my telephone number.”

“Thanks. Give George my regards. I’d like to see
him when I get back.’’

“You shall. Good-bye.”

6

78 THE SMALL BACHELOR

** Good-bye, Mr. Beamish.”

‘* Hamilton.”

Her face wore a doubtful look.

*‘I don’t much likethatname Hamilton. It’skind of stiff.”’

Hamilton Beamish had a brief struggle with himself.

“My name is also James. At one time in my lifemany
people used to call me Jimmy.” He shuddered a little,
but repeated the word bravely. ‘‘ Jimmy.”

““ Put me on the list,’’ said the girl. ‘I like that much
better. Good-bye, Jimmy.”

‘*Good-by ’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

So ended the first spasm of a great man’s love-story.
A few moments later, Hamilton Beamish was walking in
a sort of dance-measure down thestreet. Near Washington
Square he gave a small boy a dollar and asked him if he
was going to be President some day.

§ 5

‘“‘George,’’ said Hamilton Beamish ‘‘I met some one
to-day who knew you back in East Gilead. A girl.”

“What was her name? Did Molly give you any mes-
sage for me? ”’

‘Madame Eulalie.’’

“IT don’t remember anyone called that. Did Molly give
you any message for me? ”’

‘‘ She is slim and graceful and has tender grey eyes like
mists floating over some pool in Fairyland.”

‘“‘I certainly don’t remember anyone in East Gilead
like that. Did Molly give you any message for me? ”’

“No.”

‘She didn’t ?’’ George flung himself despairingly into
a chair, ‘“‘ This is the end!”

“Oh yes, she did,” said Hamilton Beamish. ‘I was
forgetting. She told me to tell you that, if you happened
to be in Central Park to-morrow afternoon near the Zoo,
you might meet her.”’

‘“‘ This is the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New
Year,’ said George Finch.

CHAPTER FIVE

§ x
ADAME EULALIE peered into the crystal that
ML was cupped between her shapely hands. The
face that had caused Hamilton Beamish to
jettison the principles of a lifetime was concentrated and
serious,

“The mists begin to clear away!’’ she murmured.

‘‘Ah!’’ said Mrs. Waddington. She had been hoping
they would.

‘‘There is some one very near to you .

“A spirit ?’’ said Mrs, Waddington nervously, casting
an apprehensive glance over her shoulder. She was never
quite sure that something of the sort might not pop out
at any moment from a corner of this dim-lit, incense-
scented room.

“You misunderstand me,”’ said Madame Eulalie gravely.
“‘T mean that that which is taking shape in the crystal
concerns some one very near to you, some near rela-
tive.”’

‘Not my husband ?”’ said Mrs. Waddington in a flat
voice. A woman careful with her money, she did not
relish the idea of handing over ten dollars for visions about
Sigsbee H.

‘* Does your husband’s name begin with an M. ? ”

“No,” said Mrs. Waddington, relieved.

‘‘The letter M. seems to be forming itself among the
mists ”’

‘“‘T have a step-daughter, Molly.”

““Ts she tall and dark? ”’

““No. Small and fair.”

“Then it is she!’’ said Madame Eulalie. ‘“‘I see her
in her wedding-dress, walking up an aisle. Her band is

79

a9

80 THE SMALL BACHELOR

on the arm of a dark man with an eyeglass. Do you
know such a person? ”’

‘‘Lord Hunstanton !’’

**T do seem to sense the letter H.”

“Lord Hunstanton is a great friend of mine, and devoted
to Molly. Do you really see her marrying him? ”’

*‘I see her walking up the aisle.’

“It’s the same thing.”

‘‘No! For she never reaches the altar.”

*‘ Why not ?’’ asked Mrs. Waddington, justly annoyed.

“From the crowd a woman springs forth. She bars
the way. She seems to be speaking rapidly, with great
emotion. And the man with the eyeglass is shrinking
back, his face working horribly. His expression is very
villainous. He raises a hand. He stnkes the woman.
She reels back. She draws out arevolver. And then...”

‘Yes?’ cried Mrs, Waddington. ‘ Yes?”

‘‘ The vision fades,’’ said Madame Eulalie, rising briskly
with the air of one who has given a good ten dollars’ worth.

“But it can’t be! It’s incredible.”’

*‘ The crystal never deceives.”’

‘‘But Lord Hunstanton is a most delightful man.”

** No doubt the woman with the revolver found him so—
to her cost.”’

“But you may have been mistaken. Many men are
dark and wear an eyeglass. What did this man look
like ?”’

‘What does Lord Hunstanton look like?”

“He is tall and beautifully proportioned, with clear
blue eyes and a small moustache, which he twists between
the finger and thumb of his right hand.”

“It was he!”

“What shall I do?”

“Well, obviously it would seem criminal to allow Miss
Waddington to associate with this man.”

‘But he’s coming to dinner to-night.”

Madame Eulalie, whose impulses sometimes ran away
with her, was about to say ‘ Poison his soup’: but con-

THE SMALL BACHELOR 81

trived in time to substitute for this remark a sober shrug
of the shoulders.

“I must leave it to you, Mrs. Waddington,”’ she said,
“to decide on the best course of action. I cannot advise.
I only warn. If you want change for a large bill, I think
I can manage it for you,’’ she added, striking the business
note.

All the way home to Seventy-Ninth Street, Mrs. Wad-
dington pondered deeply. And, as she was not a woman
who, as a rule, exercised her brain to any great extent,
by the time she reached the house she was experiencing
some of the sensations of one who has been hit on the
head by a sand-bag. What she felt that she needed above
all things in the world was complete solitude: and it
was consequently with a jaundiced eye that she looked
upon her husband, Sigsbee Horatio, when, a few moments
after her return, he shuffled into the room where she had
planted herself down for further intensive meditation.

*‘ Well, Sigsbee ? ’’ said Mrs. Waddington, wearily.

‘Qh, there you are,’’ said Sigsbee H.

“‘Do you want anything ? ”’

‘Well, yes and no,”’ said Sigsbee.

Mrs. Waddington was exasperated to perceive at this
point that her grave matrimonial blunder was slithering
about the parquet floor in the manner of one trying out
new dance-steps

‘* Stand still! ’’ she cried.

‘*T can’t,”’ said Sigsbee H. ‘I’m too nervous.”

Mrs. Waddington pressed a hand to her throbbing brow.

‘“‘Then sit down!”

“‘T’ll try,”’ said Sigsbee doubtfully. He tested a chair,
and sprang up instantly as if the seat had been charged
with electricity. ‘‘I can’t,” he said. “I’m all of a
twitter.’’

‘‘ What in the world do you mean?”

‘‘T’ve got something to tell you and I don’t know how
to begin.”

“What do you wish to tell me? ”’ °

82 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“I don’t wish to tell you it at all,’’ said Sigsbee frankly,
“* But I promised Molly I would. She came in a moment
ago.”

“Well?”

“‘I was in the library. She found me there and told
me this.”

““Do kindly get to the point, Sigsbee!’’

**T promised her I would break it gently.”

** Break what gently? You are driving me mad.”

**Do you remember,”’ asked Sigsbee, ‘‘ a splendid young
Westerner named Pinch who dropped in to dinner the
night before last? A fine, breezy...”

‘“‘T am not likely to forget the person you mention. I
have given strict instructions that he is never again to
be admitted to the house.”’

“Well, this splendid young Pinch .. .”

‘J am not interested in Mr. Finch,—which is, I believe,
his correct name.”

“Pinch, I thought.”

‘‘Finch! And what does his name matter, anyway ? ”’

““Well,”’ said Sigsbee, ‘‘it matters this much, that Molly
seems to want to make it hers. What I’m driving at,
if you see what I mean, is that Molly came in a moment
ago and told me that she and this young fellow Finch have
just gone and got engaged to be married !”’

§ 2

Having uttered these words, Sigsbee Horatio stood
gazing at his wife with something of the spell-bound horror
of a man who has bored a hole in a dam and sees the water
trickling through and knows that it is too late to stop it.
He had had a sort of idea al! along that the news might
affect her rather powerfully, and his guess was coming
true. Nothing could make a woman of Mrs. Wadding-
ton’s physique ‘leap from her chair’: but she had begun
to rise slowly like a balloon half-filled with gas: and her
face had become so contorted and her eyes so bulging that
any competent medical man of sporting tastes would have

THE SMALL BACHELOR 88

laid seven to four on a fit of apoplexy in the next few
minutes,

But by some miracle this disaster—if you could call it
that—did not occur. For quite a considerable time the
sufferer had trouble with her vocal chords and could emit
nothing but guttural croaks, Then, mastering herself
with a strong effort, she spoke.

‘““What did you say?”

*“You heard,’”’ said Sigsbee H. sullenly, twisting his
fingers and wishing that he was out in Utah, rustling
cattle.

Mrs. Waddington moistened her lips.

‘“Did I understand you to say that Molly was engaged
to be married to that Finch? ”’

““Yes, I did. And,’’ added Sigsbee H., giving battle in
the first line of trenches, ‘‘ it’s no good saying it was all
my fault, because I had nothing to do with it.”

‘“‘It was you who brought this man into the house.”

“Well, yes.’’ Sigsbee had overlooked that weak spot
in his defences. ‘‘ Well, yes.”

There came upon Mrs. Waddington a ghastly calm like
that which comes upon the surface of molten lava in the
crater of a volcano just before the stuff shoots out and
starts doing the local villagers a bit of no good.

““Ring the bell,’ she said.

Sigsbee H. rang the bell.

‘“‘ Ferris,’ said Mrs. Waddington, ‘‘ask Miss Molly to
come here.”

‘Very good, madam.”

In the interval which elapsed between the departure of
the butler and the arrival of the erring daughter, no con-
versation brilliant enough to be worth reporting took place
in the room. Once Sigsbee said ‘ Er ’ and in reply
Mrs. Waddington said ‘ Be quiet!’ but that completed
the dialogue. When Molly entered, Mrs. Waddington
was looking straight in front of her and heaving gently,
and Sigsbee H. had just succeeded in breaking a valuable
china figure which he had taken from an occasional table

84 THE SMALL BACHELOR

and was trying in a preoccupied manner to balance on the
end of a paper-knife.

‘* Ferris says you want to see me, mother,”’ said Molly,
floating brightly in.

She stood there, looking at the two with shining eyes.
Her cheeks were delightfully flushed: and there was about
her so radiant an air of sweet, innocent, girlish gaiety that
it was all Mrs. Waddington could do to refrain from hurling
a bust of Edgar Allan Poe at her head.

‘I do want to see you,”’ said Mrs. Waddington. ‘‘ Pray
tell me instantly what is all this nonsense I hear about you
and...” She choked. “ ... and Mr. Finch.”

‘“‘ To settle a bet,” said Sigsbee H., ‘‘is his name Finch
or Pinch? ”’

‘“‘ Finch, of course.”

‘‘I’m bad at names,” said Sigsbee. ‘‘I was in college
with a fellow called Follansbee and do you think I could
get it out of my nut that that guy’s name was Ferguson ?
Not in a million years! I...”

‘* Sigsbee | ’”’

** Hello ? ”’

*‘ Be quiet.””’ Mrs. Waddington concentrated her atten-
tion on Molly once more. ‘“‘ Your father says that you
told him some absurd story about being... .”

“Engaged to George? ’”’ said Molly. ‘“‘ Yes, it’s quite
true. I am. By a most extraordinary chance we met
this afternoon in Central Park near the Zoo... .”’

“A place,’ said Sigsbee H., “I’ve meant to go toa
hundred times and never seen yet.”

** Sigsbee | ”’

“All right, all right! I was only saying...”

““We were both tremendously surprised, of course,’
said Molly. ‘‘I said ‘ Fancy meeting you here!’ and he
said...”

“IT have no wish to hear what Mr. Finch said.”

“Well, anyway, we walked round for awhile, looking
at the animals, and suddenly he asked me to marry him
outside the cage of the Siberian yak.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 85

** No, sir! ’’ exclaimed Sigsbee H. with a sudden strange
firmness, the indulgent father who for once in his life
asserts himself. ‘‘ When you get married, you'll be married
in St. Thomas’s like any other nice girl.”’

““T mean it was outside the cage of the Siberian yak
that he asked me to marry him.”

‘‘Oh, ah!’’ said Sigsbee H.

A dreamy look had crept into Molly’s eyes. Her lips
were curved in a tender smile, as if she were re-living that
wonderful moment in a girl’s life when the man she loves
beckons to her to follow him into Paradise.

‘You ought to have seen his ears|’’ she said. ‘ They
were absolutely crimson.”’

‘* You don’t say !’’ chuckled Sigsbee H.

‘‘Scarlet ! And, when he tried to speak, he gargled.”’

‘‘The poor simp!”

Molly turned on her father with flaming eyes.

‘* How dare you call my dear darling Georgie a simp ? ”’

‘“‘How dare you call that simp your dear darling
Georgie? ’’ demanded Mrs. Waddington.

‘“ Because he is my dear darling Georgie. I love him
with all my heart, the precious lamb, and I’m going to
marry him.”

‘You are going to do nothing of the kind!” Mrs.
Waddington quivered with outraged indignation. ‘‘ Do
you imagine I intend to allow you to ruin your life by
marrying a despicable fortune-hunter ? ”’

‘‘He isn’t a despicable fortune-hunter.”’

“‘He is a penniless artist.”

** Well, I’m sure he is frightfully clever and will be able
to sell his pictures for ever so much ”

“ Tchah |”

‘‘ Besides,”’ said Molly defiantly, ‘‘ when I marry I get
that pear] necklace which father gave mother. I can sell
that, and it will keep us going for years.”

Mrs. Waddington was about to reply—and there is
little reason to doubt that that reply would have been
about as red-hot a come-back as any hundred and eighty

86 THE SMALL BACHELOR

pound woman had ever spoken—when she was checked by
a sudden exclamation of agony that proceeded from the
lips of her husband.

“‘ Whatever is the matter, Sigsbee ? ” she said, annoyed.

Sigsbee H. seemed to be wrestling with acute mental
agitation. He was staring at his daughter with protruding
eyes.

“Did you say you were going to sell that necklace ? ”
he stammered.

“Oh, be quiet, Sigsbee!’’ said Mrs. Waddington.
“What does it matter whether she sells the necklace
or not? It has nothing to do with the argument. The
point is that this misguided girl is proposing to throw
herself away on a miserable, paint-daubing, ukelele-
playing artist...”

“He doesn’t play the ukelele. He told me so.”’

““, . . when she might, if she chose, marry a delightful
man with a fine old English title who would .. .”

Mrs. Waddington broke off. There had come back to
her the memory of that scene in Madame Eulalie’s
office.

Molly seized the opportunity afforded by her unexpected
silence to make a counter-attack.

“I wouldn’t marry Lord Hunstanton if he were the last
man in the world.” t

“Honey,” said Sigsbee H. in a low, pleading voice,
“I don’t think I’d sell that necklace if I were you.”

““Of course I shall sell it. We shall need the money
when we are married.”

“You are not going to be married,” said Mrs. Wadding-
ton, recovering. ‘“‘I should have thought any right-
minded girl would have despised this wretched Finch.
Why, the man appears to be so poor-spirited that he didn’t
even dare to come here and tell me this awful news. He
left it to you...”

“George was not able to come here. The poor pet
has been arrested by a policeman.”

“Hal” cried Mrs. Waddington triumphantly. ‘ And

THE SMALL BACHELOR 87

that is the sort of man you propose to marry! A gaol-
bird |”

‘‘ Well, I think it shows what a sweet nature he has.
He was so happy at being engaged that he suddenly
stopped at Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue and started
giving away dollar-bills to everybody who came by. In
about two minutes there was a crowd stretching right across
to Madison Avenue, and the traffic was blocked for miles,
and they called out the police-reserves, and George was
taken away in a patrol-wagon, and I telephoned to Hamil-
ton Beamish to go and bail him out and bring him along
here. They ought to arrive at any moment.”

““Mr. Hamilton Beamish and Mr. George Finch,” said
Ferris in the doorway. And the nicely-graduated way in
which he spoke the two names would have conveyed at
once to any intelligent listener that Hamilton Beamish
was an honoured guest but that he had been forced to
admit George Finch—against all the promptings of his
better nature—because Mr. Beamish had told him to and
he had been quelled by the man’s cold, spectacled eye.

“‘ Here we are,” said Hamilton Beamish heartily. “‘ Just
in time, I perceive, to join in a jolly family discussion.”

Mrs. Waddington looked bleachingly at George, who
was trying to hide behind a gate-leg table. For George
Finch was conscious of not looking his best. Nothing so
disorders the outer man as the process of being arrested
and hauled to the coop by a posse of New York gendarmes.
George’s collar was hanging loose from its stud: his
waistcoat lacked three buttons: and his right eye was
oddly discoloured where a high-minded officer, piqued by
the fact that he should have collected crowds by scatter-
ing dollar-bills and even more incensed by the discovery
that he had scattered all he possessed and had none left, had
given him a hearty buffet during the ride in the patrol-wagon.

‘“‘ There is no discussion,’”’ said Mrs. Waddington. ‘“ You
do not suppose I am going to allow my daughter to marry
a man like that.”

“ Tut-tut !’’ said Hamilton Beamish. “‘ George 8 not

68 THE SMALL BACHELOR

looking his best just now, but a wash and brush-up will do
wonders. ... What is your objection to George ?”

Mrs. Waddington was at a momentary loss for a reply.
Anybody, suddenly questioned as to why he disliked
a slug or a snake or a black-beetle, might find it difficult
on the spur of the moment to analyse and dissect his
prejudice. Mrs. Waddington looked on her antipathy to
George Finch as one of those deep, natural, fundamental
impulses which the sensible person takes for granted.
Broadly speaking, she objected to George because he was
George. It was, as it were, his essential Georgeness that
offended her. But, seeing that she was expected to be
analytical, she forced her mind to the task.

“ He is an artist.”’

““So was Michael Angelo.”

“T never met him.”

“He was a very great man.”

Mrs. Waddington raised her eyebrows.

“TI completely fail to understand, Mr. Beamish, why,
when we are discussing this young man here with the
black eye and the dirty collar, you should persist in diverting
the conversation to the subject of a perfect stranger like
this Mr. Angelo.”

“‘T merely wished to point out,” said Hamilton Beamish
stiffly, ‘‘ that the fact that he is an artist does not neces-
sarily damn a man.”

“ There is no need,” retorted Mrs. Waddington with even
greater stiffness, “ to use bad language.”

“ Besides, George is a rotten artist.’

“‘ Rotten to the core, no doubt.”

“‘I mean,” said Hamilton Beamish, flushing slightly at
the lapse from the English Pure into which emotion had
led him, “he paints so badly that you can hardly call
him an artist at all.”

“Is that so?” said George, speaking for the first time
and speaking nastily.

“I am sure George is one of the cleverest artists living ’’
cried ‘Molly.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 89

“ He is not,” thundered Hamilton Beamish. “ He is
an incompetent amateur.”

“Exactly!” said Mrs. Waddington. ‘‘ And _ conse-
quently can never hope to make money.”

Hamilton Beamish’s eyes lit up behind their spectacles.

“Ts that your chief objection ? ” he asked.

“Is what my chief objection ? ”

“That George has no money ? ”

“ But...’ began George.

“Shut up!” said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘I ask you,
Mrs. Waddington, would you give your consent to this
marriage if my friend George Finch were a wealthy
man ?”’

“Tt is a waste of time to discuss such .. .”

“Would you?”

“Possibly I would.”

‘‘ Then allow me to inform you,” said Hamilton Beamish,
triumphantly, ‘that George Finch is an exceedingly
wealthy man. His uncle Thomas, whose entire fortune
he inherited two years ago, was Finch, Finch, Finch,
Butterfield and Finch, the well-known Corporation Law
firm. George, my boy, let me congratulate you. All 1s
well. Mrs. Waddington has withdrawn her objections.”

Mrs. Waddington snorted, but it was the snort of a
beaten woman, out-generalled by a superior intelligence.

But gee

“No.” Hamilton Beamish raised his hand. “ You
cannot go back on what you said. You stated in distinct
terms that, if George had money, you would consent to
the marriage.”

“ And, anyway, I don’t know what all the fuss is about,”’
said Molly. ‘‘ Because I am going to marry him, no
matter what anybody says.”

Mrs. Waddington capitulated.

“Very well! I am nobody, I see. What I say does
mot matter in the slightest.”

“Mother!” said George reproachfully.

“* Mother ? ” echoed Mrs. Waddington, starting violéntly.

60 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“Now that everything is so happily settled, of course
I regard you in that light.”

“Qh, do you ?” said Mrs. Waddington.

“Oh, I do,” said George.

Mrs. Waddington sniffed unpleasantly.

“I have been overwhelmed and forced into consenting
to a marriage of which I strongly disapprove,” she said,
“but I may be permitted to say one word. I have a
feeling that this wedding will never take place.”

“What do you mean ?” said Molly. ‘ Of course it will
take place. Why shouldn’t it?”

Mrs. Waddington sniffed again.

“Mr. Finch,” she said, “though a very incompetent
artist, has lived for a considerable time in the heart of
Greenwich Village and mingled daily with Bohemians of
both sexes and questionable morals.

“What are you hinting ? ” demanded Molly.

“T am not hinting,” replied Mrs. Waddington with
dignity. ‘“‘I am saying. And what I am saying is this.
Do not come to me for sympathy if this Finch of yours
turns out to have the sort of moral code which you might
expect in one who deliberately and of his own free will
goes and lives near Washington Square. I say again,
that I have a presentiment that this marriage will never
take place. I had a similar presentiment regarding the
wedding of my sister-in-law and a young man named John
Porter. I said, ‘I feel that this wedding will never take
place.’ And events proved me right. John Porter, at
the very moment when he was about to enter the church,
was arrested on a charge of bigamy.”

George uttered protesting noises.

“But my morals are above reproach.”

“So you say.”

‘““T assure you that, as far as women are concerned, I
can scarcely tell one from another.”’

“ Precisely,”” replied Mrs. Waddington, “ what John
Porter said when they asked him why he had married six
different girls.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 91

Hamilton Beamish looked at his watch.

“ Well, now that everything is satisfactorily settled .. .”

“For the moment,” said Mrs. Waddington.

“Now that everything is satisfactorily settled,” pro-
ceeded Hamilton Beamish, “‘ I will be leaving you. I have
to get back and dress. I am speaking at a dinner of the
Great Neck Social and Literary Society to-night.”

The silence that followed his departure was followed by
a question from Sigsbee H. Waddington.

‘‘ Molly, my dear,’ said Sigsbee H., “ touching on that
necklace. Now that this splendid young fellow turns
out to be very rich, you will not want to sell it, of course ? ”’

Molly reflected.

“ Yes, I think I will. I never liked it much. It’s too
showy. I shall sell it and buy something very nice with
the money for George. A lot of diamond pins or watches
or motor-cars or something. And, whenever we look at
them we will think of you, daddy dear.”

“Thanks,” said Mr. Waddington huskily. ‘‘ Thanks.”

“‘ Seldom in my life,”’ observed Mrs. Waddington, coming
abruptly out of the brooding coma into which she had
sunk, “ have I ever had a stronger presentiment than the
one to which I alluded just now.”

‘“‘Oh, mother! ”’ said George.

Hamilton Beamish, gathering up his hat in the hall,
became aware that something was pawing at his sleeve.
He looked down and perceived Sigsbee H. Waddington.

“Say |’ said Sigsbee H. in a hushed undertone. “‘ Say,
listen |”

“Ts anything the matter?”

“You bet your tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles some-
thing’s the matter,’’ whispered Sigsbee H. urgently. “ Say,
listen. Can I have a word with you? I want your
advice.”’

“T’m in a hurry.”

“ How long will you be before you start out for this
Hoboken Clam-Bake of yours ? ”’

“The dinner of the Great Neck Social and Literary

92 THE SMALL BACHELOR
Society, to which I imagine you to allude, is at eight
o’clock. I shall motor down, leaving my apartment at

twenty minutes past seven.”
“Then it’s no good trying to see you to-night. Say,
listen. Will you be home to-morrow ? ”
“Yes.”
“ Right!” said Sigsbee H.

CHAPTER SIX

§ 1
a AY, listen!” said Sigsbee H. Waddington.
“‘ Proceed,” said Hamilton Beamish.

S ‘‘Say, listen |”

“I am all attention.”

“‘ Say, listen!’”’ said Mr. Waddington.

Hamilton Beamish glanced at his watch impatiently.
Even at its normal level of imbecility, the conversation
of Sigsbee H. Waddington was apt to jar upon his critical
mind, and now, it seemed to him, the other was plumbing
depths which even he had never reached before.

“TI can give you seven minutes,” he said. “‘ At the
end of that period of time I must leave you. Iam speaking
at a luncheon of the Young Women Writers of America.
You came here, I gather, to make a communication to
me. Make it.”

“Say, listen! ’”’ said Sigsbee H.

Hamilton Beamish compressed his lips sternly. He had
heard parrots with a more intelligent flow of conversation.
He was conscious of a strange desire to beat this man over
the head with a piece of lead-piping.

“Say, listen!” said Sigsbee H. “I’ve gone and got
myself into the devil of a jam.”

‘“‘ A position of embarrassment ? ”

“You said it!”

“‘ State nature of same,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, looking
at his watch again.

Mr. Waddington glanced quickly and nervously over his
shoulder.

“It’s like this. You heard Molly say yesterday she
was going to sell those pearls.”

“1 did.”

2? 93

04 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“ Well, say, listen |” said Mr. Waddington, lowering his
voice and looking apprehensively about him once more.
“‘ They aren’t pearls! ”

“What are they, then ? ”

“ Fakes |”

Hamilton Beamish winced.

“You mean imitation stones ? ”’

“That’s just what Ido mean. What am I going to do
about it ? ”

“Perfectly simple. Bring an action against the jeweller
who sold them to you as genuine.”

“But they were genuine then. You don’t seem to get
the position.”

“I do not.”

Sigsbee H. Waddington moistened his lips.

“Have you ever heard of the Finer and Better Motion
Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal. ? ”

“ Kindly keep to the point. My time is limited.”

“This is the point. Some time ago a guy who said he
was a friend of mine tipped me off that this company was
a wow.”

‘A what ?”

“A winner. He said it was going to be big and advised
me to come in on the ground floor. The chance of a life-
time, he said it was.”

“Well ? ”

“Well, I hadn’t any money,—not a cent. Still, I
didn’t want to miss a good thing like that, so I sat down
and thought. I thought and thought and thought. And
then suddenly something seemed to say to me ‘ Why not ?’
That pearl necklace, I mean. There it was, you get me,
just sitting and doing nothing and I only needed the money
for a few weeks till this Company started to clean up
and .. . well, to cut a long story short, I sneaked the
necklace away, had the fake stones put in, sold the others,
bought the stock, and there I was, so I thought, all hotsy-
totsy.”’

“ All—what ? ”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 95

“‘Hotsy-totsy. It seemed to me that I was absolutely
hotsy-totsy.”

“And what has caused you to revise this opinion ? ”

“Why, I met a man the other day who said these
shares weren’t worth a bean. I’ve got ’em here. Take
a look at them.”

Hamilton Beamish scrutinized the documents with
distaste.

“The man was right,” he said. ‘When you first
mentioned the name of the company, it seemed familiar.
I now recall why. Mrs. Henrietta Byng Masterson, the
president of the Great Neck Social and Literary Society, was
speaking to me of it last night. She also had bought
shares and mentioned the fact with regret. I should
say at a venture that these of yours are worth possibly
ten dollars.”

“I gave fifty thousand for them.”

“Then your books will show a loss of forty-nine thousand
nine hundred and ninety. I am sorry.”

“But what am I to do?”

“Write it off to experience.”

“But hell’s bells! Don’t you understand? What’s
going to happen when Molly tries to sell that necklace and
it comes out that it’s a fake ? ”

Hamilton Beamish shook his head. With most of the
ordinary problems of life he was prepared to cope, but
this, he frankly admitted, was beyond him.

“My wife’ll murder me.”

“Tm sorry.”

“‘T came here, thinking that you would be able to suggest
something.”

“‘ Short of stealing the necklace and dropping it in the
Hudson River, I fear I can think of no solution.”

“You used to be a brainy sort of gink,” said Mr. Wad-
dington reproachfully.

“No human brain could devise a way out of this impasse.
You can but wait events and trust to Time tbe erent healer
eventually to mend matters.”

96 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘ That’s a lot of help.’

Hamilton Beamish shrugged his shoulders. Sigsbee H.
Waddington regarded the stock-certificates malevolently.

“If the stuff’s no good,’’ he said, ‘“‘ what do they
want to put all those dollar-signs on the back for? Mis-
leading people! And look at that seal. And all those
signatures.”’

‘‘T am sorry,” said Hamilton Beamish. He moved to
the window and leaned out, sniffing the summer air
‘‘ What a glorious day.”

‘No, it isn’t,”’ said Mr. Waddington.

“‘Have you ever by any chance met Madame Eulalie,
Mrs. Waddington’s palmist ?’’ asked Hamilton Beamish
dreamily.

‘‘Darn all palmists!’’ said Sigsbee H. Waddington.
‘What am I going to do about this stock? ”’

‘‘I have already told you that there is nothing that
you can do, short of stealing the necklace.”

‘‘There must be something. What would you do if
you were me?”

“Run away to Europe.”

“But I can’t run away to Europe I haven’t any
money.”

‘“‘ Then shoot yourself . . . standin front of atrain . .
anything, anything,’’ said Hamilton Beamish impatiently.
‘* And now I must really go. Good-bye.”’

“‘Good-bye. Thanks for being such a help.”

‘‘Not at all,”’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ Don’t men-
tion it. I am always delighted to be of any assistance,
always.”

He gave a last soulful glance at the photograph on the
mantelpiece and left the room. Mr. Waddington could
hear him singing an old French love-song as he waited
for the elevator, and the sound seemed to set the seal
upon his gloom and despair.

“You big stiff!’’ said Mr. Waddington morosely.

He flung himself into a chair and gave himself up to
melantholy meditation. For awhile, all he could think of

THE SMALL BACHELOR 97

was how much he disliked Hamilton Beamish. There was
a man who went about the place pretending to be clever,
and yet the moment you came to him with a childishly
simple problem which he ought to have been able to
solve in half a dozen different ways in five minutes, he could
do nothing but say he was sorry and advise a fellow to
stand in front of trains and shoot himself. What on
earth was the use of trying to be optimistic about a world
which contained people like Hamilton Beamish ?

And that idiotic suggestion of his about stealing the
necklace! How could he possibly... ?

Sigsbee H. Waddington sat up in his chair. There
was a gleam in his eyes. He snorted. Was it such an
idiotic suggestion, after all?

He gazed into the future. At the moment the necklace
was in safe custody at the bank, but, if Molly was going
to marry this young Pinch, it would presumably be taken
from there and placed on exhibition among the other
wedding-presents. So that ere long there would unde-
niably be a time—say, the best part of a day—when a
resolute man with a nimble set of fingers might...

Mr. Waddington sank back in his chair again. The
light died out of hiseyes. Philosophers tell us that no man
really knows himself: but Sigsbee H. Waddington knew
himself well enough to be aware that he fell short by several
miles of the nerve necessary for such an action. Stealing
necklaces is no job for an amateur. You cannot suddenly
take to it in middle life without any previous preparation.
Every successful stealer of necklaces has to undergo a
rigorous and intensive training from early boyhood, start-
ing with milk-cans and bags at railway stations and work-
ing his way up. What was needed for this very delicate
operation was a seasoned professional.

And there, felt Sigsbee H. Waddington bitterly, you had
in a nutshell the thing that made life so difficult to live—the
tragic problem of how to put your hand on the right
Specialist at the exact moment when you required him.
All these reference-books like the Classified Telepbone

98 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Directory omitted the vital trades——the trades whose
members were of assistance in the real crises of life. They
told you where to find a Glass Beveller, as if anyone knew
what to do with a Glass Beveller when they had got him.
They gave you the address of Yeast Producers and Designers
of Quilts: but what was the good of a producer of yeast
when you wanted some one who would produce a jemmy
and break into a house, or a designer of quilts when what
you required was a man who could design a satisfactory
scheme for stealing an imitation-pearl necklace ?

Mr. Waddington groaned in sheer bitterness of spirit.
The irony of things afflicted him sorely. Every day the
papers talked about the Crime Wave: every day a thou-
sand happy crooks were making off in automobiles with
a thousand bundles of swag : and yet here he was, in urgent
need of one of these crooks, and he didn’t know where to
look for him.

A deprecating tap sounded on the door.

*“Come in!’’ shouted Mr. Waddington irritably.

He looked up and perceived about seventy-five inches
of bony policeman shambling over the threshold.

§ 2
“I beg your pardon, sir, if I seem to intrude,” said the
policeman, beginning to recede. ‘‘I came to see Mr,

Beamish. I should have made an appointment.”

“Hey! Don’t go.”’ Said Mr. Waddington.

The policeman paused doubtfully at the door.

‘‘ But as Mr. Beamish is not at home.. .”

‘‘Come right in and havea chat. Sit down and take the
weight off your feet. My name is Waddington.”’

“‘Mine is Garroway,’’ replied the officer, bowing
courteously.

‘* Pleased to meet you.”

‘“‘ Happy to meet you, sir.’’

““ Have a good cigar.”’

**I should enjoy it above all things.”

‘‘ [wonder where Mr. Beamish keeps them,” said Sigsbee

THE SMALL BACHELOR 99

H., rising and routing about the room. ‘‘ Ah, here we are,
Match ? ”’

‘‘T have a match, thank you.”

‘* Capital | ”’

Sigsbee H. Waddington resumed his seat and regarded
the other affectionately. An instant before, he had been
bemoaning the fact that he did not know where to lay
his hands on a crook, and here, sent from heaven, was a
man who was probably a walking directory of malefactors.

‘IT like policemen,’’ said Mr. Waddington affably.

‘That is very gratifying, sir.”’

‘‘ Always have. Shows how honest I am, ha hal If
I were a crook, I suppose I’d be scared stiff, sitting here
talking to you.’”’ Mr. Waddington drew bluffly at his cigar.
‘IT guess you come across a lot of criminals, eh ? ”’

‘‘It is the great drawback to the policeman’s life,’
assented Officer Garroway, sighing. ‘‘ One meets them on
all sides. Only last night, when I was searching for a
vital adjective, I was called upon to arrest an uncouth
person who had been drinking home-brewed hootch. He
soaked me on the jaw, and inspiration left me.”

‘““Wouldn’t that give you a soft-pine finish! ’’ said Mr.
Waddingtonsympathetically. ‘‘ But what I was referring to
was real crooks, Fellows who get into houses and steal
pearl necklaces. Ever meet any of them?”

“I meet a great number. In pursuance of his duty, a
policeman is forced against his will to mix with all sorts
of questionable people. It may be that my profession
biases me, but I have a hearty dislike for thieves.”’

“Still, if there were no thieves, there would be no
policemen.”’

“ Very true, sir.”

“Supply and demand.”

“* Precisely.”’

Mr. Waddington blew a cloud of smoke.

“I’m kind of interested in crooks,’’ he said. ‘‘ I’d like
to meet a few.”’

“‘T assure you that you would not find the expérience

100 THE SMALL BACHELOR

enjoyable,’ said Officer Garroway, shaking his head.
‘‘They are unpleasant, illiterate men with little or no
desire to develop their souls. I make an exception, I
should mention, however, in the case of Mr. Mullett, who
seemed a nice sort of fellow. I wish I could have seen
more of him.”

‘Mullett ? Who’s he?”

‘‘ He is an ex-convict, sir, who works for Mr. Finch in
the apartment upstairs.”’

‘You don’t say! An ex-convict and works for Mr.
Finch ? What was his line? ”’

“Inside burglary jobs, sir. I understand, however,
that he has reformed and is now a respectable member of
society.”

‘“‘ Still, he was a burglar once?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, well! ”’

There was a silence. Officer Garroway, who was trying
to find a good synonym for one of the adjectives in the
poem on which he was occupied, stared thoughtfully at the
ceiling. Mr. Waddington chewed his cigar intensely.

“‘ Say, listen!’’ said Mr. Waddington.

“Sir? ’’ said the policeman, coming out of his reverie
with a start.

““Suppose,’’ said Mr. Waddington, “‘ suppose, just for
the sake of argument, that a wicked person wanted a
crook to do a horrible, nefarious job for him, would he
have to pay him?”

“Undoubtedly, sir. These men are very mercenary.”

“Pay him much?”

“IT imagine a few hundred dollars. It would depend
on the magnitude of the crime contemplated, no doubt.”

“‘A few hundred dollars! ”’

““Two, perhaps, or three.”

Silence fell once more. Officer Garroway resumed his
inspection of the ceiling. What he wanted was something
signifying the aspect of the streets of New York, and he
had tsed ‘sordid’ in line two. ‘Scabrous!’ That was

THE SMALL BACHELOR 101

the word. He was rolling it over his tongue when he
became aware that his companion was addressing him.

‘‘I beg your pardon, sir? ”’

Mr. Waddington’s eyes were glittering in a peculiar
way. He leaned forward and tapped Officer Garroway on
the knee.

‘‘Say, listen! I like your face, Larrabee.”

‘‘My name is Garroway.”

“‘ Never mind about your name. It’s your face I like.
Say, listen, do you want to make a pile of money? ”’

‘* Yes, sir.”’

‘“‘ Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve taken a fancy
to you, and I’m going to do something for you that I
wouldn’t do for many people. Have you ever heard of
the Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of Holly-
wood, Cal.?”’

‘No, sir.”

*“That’s the wonderful thing,” said Mr. Waddington
in a sort of ecstacy. ‘‘ Nobody’s ever heard of it. It
isn’t one of those worn-out propositions like the Famous
Players that everybody’s sick and tired of. It’s new.
And do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to
let you have a block of stock in it for a quite nominal
figure. It would be insulting you to give it you for nothing,
which is what I’d like to do, of course. But it amounts
to the same thing. This stock here is worth thousands
and thousands of dollars, and you shall have it for three
hundred. Have you got three hundred?” asked Mr.
Waddington, anxiously.

““Yes, sir, I have that sum, but...’

Mr. Waddington waved his cigar.

“Don’t use that word ‘but’! I know what you’re
trying to say. You're trying to tell me, I’m robbing
myself. I know I am, and what of it? What’s money
to me? The way I look at it is that, when a man has
made his pile, like me, and has got enough to keep his
wife and family in luxury, the least he can do as a lover
of humanity is to let the rest go to folks who'll appreciate

102 THE SMALL BACHELOR

it. Now you probably need money as much as the rest
of them, eh?”

“I certainly do, sir.”

‘“‘Then here you are,” said Mr. Waddington, brandish-
ing the bundle of stock certificates. ‘‘ This is where you
getit. You can take it from me that the Finer and Better
Motion Picture Company is the biggest thing since Marconi
invented the victrola.”’

Officer Garroway took the stock and fondled it thought-
fully.

‘“‘ It’s certainly very nicely engraved,” he said.

‘You bet it is! And look at those dollar-signs on the
back. Look at that seal. Cast your eye over those
signatures. Those mean something. And you know
what the motion-pictures are. A bigger industry than
the beef business. And the Finer and Better is the greatest
proposition of them all. It isn’t like other companies.
For one thing, it hasn’t been paying out all its money in
dividends.”’

ee No ? a8

*‘No, sir! Not wasted a cent that way.”

“It’s all still there? ”’

** All still there. And, what’s more, it hasn’t released a
single picture.”

‘* All still there ? ”’

*‘ All still there. Lying on the shelves,—dozens of them.
And then take the matter of overhead expenses,—the
thing that cripples all these other film companies. Big
studios .. . expensive directors... high-salaried stars...”

‘* All still there ? ”’

‘‘No, sir! That’s the point. They’re not there. The
Finer and Better Motion Picture Company hasn’t any of
these D. W. Griffiths and Gloria Swansons eating away
its capital. It hasn’t even a studio.”

“Not even a studio ? ”

“No, sir. Nothing but a company. I tell you it’s
big !”’

Officer Garroway’s mild blue eyes widened.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 108

‘* It sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime,”’ he agreed.

‘‘ The opportunity of a dozen lifetimes,’’ said Mr. Wad-
dington. ‘‘ And that’s the way to get on in the world—
by grabbing your opportunities. Why, what’s Big Ben but
a wrist-watch that saw its chance and made good?’”’ Mr.
Waddington paused. His forehead wrinkled. Hesnatched
the bundle of stock from his companion’s grasp and made
a@ movement towards his pocket. ‘‘ No!’’ he said, ‘‘ No!
I can’t do it. I can’t let you have it, after all! ”’

“Oh, sir!”

‘‘No. It’s too big.’’

**Oh, but, Mr. Waddington .. .”

Sigsbee H. Waddington seemed to come out of a trance,
He shook himself and stared at the policeman as if he were
saying ‘Where am I?’ He heaved a deep, remorseful
sigh.

“‘Isn’t money the devil!’’ he said. ‘“‘Isn’t it terrible
the way it saps all a fellow’s principles and good resolu-
tions! Sheer greed, that was what was the matter with
me, when I said I wouldn’t let you have this stock. Sheer,
grasping greed. Here am I, with millions in the bank,
and the first thing you know I’m trying to resist a gen-
erous impulse to do a fellow human-being, whose face I
like, a kindly act. It’s horrible!’’ He wrenched the
bundle from his pocket and threw it to the policeman.
““ Here, take it before I weaken again. Give me the three
hundred quick and let me get away.”

‘‘T don’t know how to thank you, sir.”

** Don’t thank me, don’t thank me. One—two—three,’
said Mr. Waddington, counting the bills. ‘‘ Don’t thank
me at all. It’s a pleasure.”

§ 3
Upstairs, while the conversation just recorded was in
progress, Frederick Mullett was entertaining his fiancée,
Fanny Welch, to a light collation in the kitchen of George
Finch’s apartment. It is difficult for a man to look devo-
tional while his mouth is full of cold beef and chatney,

104 THE SMALL BACHELOR

—but not impossible, for Mullett was doing it now. He
gazed at Fanny very much as George Finch had gazed at
Molly Waddington, Hamilton Beamish at Madame Eulalie,
and as a million other young men in New York and its
outskirts were or would shortly be gazing at a million
other young women. Love had come rather late to Fred-
erick Mullett, for his had been a busy life, but it had come
to stay.

Externally, Fanny Welch appeared not unworthy of his
devotion. Shewasa pretty little thing with snapping black
eyes and a small face. The thing you noticed about her
first was the slim shapeliness of her hands, with their long
sensitive fingers. One of the great advantages of being a
pickpocket is that you do have nice hands.

“‘T like this place,’’ said Fanny, looking about her.

““Do you, honey?” said Mullett tenderly ‘‘I was
hoping you would. Because I’ve got a secret for you.”

“What's that ? ”’

“* This is where you and me are going to spend our honey-
moon | ”’

‘‘ What, in this kitchen ? ’”’

“‘ Of course not. We'll have the run of the whole apart-
ment, with the roof thrown in.”

*“What’ll Mr. Finch have to say to that?”

““He won't know, pettie. You see, Mr. Finch has
just gone and got engaged to be married himself, and he’ll
be off on his honeymoon-trip, so the whole place’ll be ours
for ever so long. What do you think of that?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“*’ll take and show you the place in a minute or two.
It’s the best studio-apartment for miles around. There’s
a nice large sitting-room that looks on to the roof, with
French windows so that you can stroll out and take the
air when you like. And there’s a sleeping-porch on the
roof, in case the weather’s warm. Anda bath H. and C.,
with shower. It’s the snuggest place you'll ever want
to find, and you and I can stay perched up here like two
little birds in a nest. And, when we've finished honey-

THE SMALL BACHELOR 105

mooning, we'll go down to Long Island and buy a little
duck-farm and live happy ever after.”

Fanny looked doubtful.

‘‘Can you see me on a duck-farm, Freddy?”

‘‘Can I?” Mullett’s eyes beamed adoration. ‘‘ You
bet J can see you there,—standing in a gingham apron
on the old brick path between the hollyhocks, watching
little Frederick romping under the apple-tree.’’

“Little who?”’

** Little Frederick.”

“‘Oh? And did you notice little Fanny clinging to my
skirts ? ”’

‘‘So she is. And William John in his cradle on the
porch.”

‘‘T think we’d better stop looking for awhile,” said
Fanny. ‘‘ Our family’s growing too fast.”

Mullett sighed ecstatically.

“‘ Doesn’t it sound quiet and peaceful after the stormy
lives we’ve led. The quacking of the ducks.... The
droning of the bees. ... Put back that spoon, dearie.
You know it doesn’t belong to you.”

Fanny removed the spoon from the secret places of her
dress and eyed it with a certain surprise.

““ Now, how did that get there? ’”’ she said.

“You snitched it up, sweetness,’ said Mullett gently.
“Your little fingers just hovered for a moment like little
bees over a flower, and the next minute the thing was
gone. It was beautiful to watch, dearie, but put it back.
You've done with all that sort of thing now, you know.”

“IT guess I have,” said Fanny wistfully.

“You don’t guess you have, precious,’’ corrected her
husband-to-be. ‘‘ You know you have. Same as I’ve
done.”

‘“‘ Are you really on the level now, Freddy ? ”’

“‘T’m as honest as the day is long.”

“Work at nights, eh? Mullett, the human moth.
Goes through his master’s clothes like a jealous wile.”

Mullett laughed indulgently.

106 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“‘The same little Fanny! How you do love to tease.
Yes, precious, I’m through with the game for good. I
wouldn’t steal a bone collar-stud now, not if my mother
came and begged me on her bended knee. All I want is
my little wife and my little home in the country.”

Fanny frowned pensively.

**'You don’t think it’ll be kind of quiet down on that
duck-farm? Kind of slow? ”’

** Slow ?’’ said Mullett, shocked.

“Well, maybe not. But we're retiring from business
awful young, Freddy.”

A look of concern came into Mullett’s face.

“You don’t mean you still have a hankering for the
old game? ”’

“Well, what if I do?’ said Fanny defiantly. “ You
do, too, if you’d only come clean and admit it.”

The look of concern changed to one of dignity.

** Nothing of the kind,”’ said Mullett. ‘I give you my
word, Fanny, that there isn’t the job on earth that could
tempt me now. And I do wish you would bring yourself
to feel the same, honey.”

** Oh, I’m not saying I would bother with anything that
wasn’t really big. But, honest to goodness, Freddy, it
would be a crime to side-step anything worth-while, if
it came along. It isn’t as if we had all the money in the
world. I’ve picked up some nice little things at the stores
and I suppose you've kept some of the stuff you got away
with, but outside of that we’ve nothing but the bit of
cash we’ve managed to save. We've got to be practical.”’

“But, sweetie, think of the awful chances you'd be
taking of getting pinched.’

“I’m not afraid. If they ever do nab me, I’ve got a
yarn about my poor old mother. . .”

“‘ You haven't got a mother.”

“Who said I had? ...a yarn about my poor old
mother that would draw tears from the Woolworth Build-
ing. Listen! ‘ Don’t turn me over to the police, mister,
I only did it for ma’s sake. If you was out of work for

THE SMALL BACHELOR 107

weeks and starvin’ and you had to sit and watch your
poor old ma bendin’ over the wash-tubs .. .’”’

‘“‘Don’t, Fanny, please! I can’t bear it even though I
know it’s just a game. I... Hello! Somebody at
the front door. Probably only a model wanting to know
if Mr. Finch has a job for her. You wait here, honey.
I’ll get rid of her and be back in half a minute.”

§ 4

More than twenty times that period had, however,
elapsed before Frederick Mullett returned to the kitchen.
He found his bride-to-be in a considerably less amiable
mood than that in which he had left her. She was standing
with folded arms, and the temperature of the room had
gone down a number of degrees.

‘“‘ Pretty girl? ’’ she inquired frostily, as Mullett crossed
the threshold.

«6 Eh ? a3

‘You said you were going to send that model away in
half a minute, and I’ve been waiting here nearer a quarter
of an hour,” said Fanny, verifying this statement by a
glance at the wrist-watch, the absence of which from their
stock was still an unsolved mystery to a prosperous firm
of jewellers on Fifth Avenue.

Mullett clasped her in hisarms. It was a matter of some
difficulty, for she was not responsive, but he did it.

“‘It was not a model, darling. It wasa man. A guy
with grey hair and a red face.”’

‘“‘Oh? What did he want?”

Mullett’s already somewhat portly frame seemed to
expand, as if with some deep emotion.

‘‘He came to tempt me, Fanny.”

“To tempt you?”

‘“‘That’s what he did. Wanted to know if my name
was Mullett, and two seconds after I had said it was he
offered me three hundred dollars to perpetrate a crime.”

‘He did? What crime?”

‘*T didn’t wait for him to tell me. I spurned hig offer

108 THE SMALL BACHELOR

and came away. That’ll show you if I’ve reformed or
not. A nice, easy, simple job he said it was, that I could
do in a couple of minutes.”

‘‘ And you spurned him, eh?”’

“I certainly spurned him. I spurned him good and
plenty.”

“And then you came away? ”’

‘Came right away.”’

“Then listen here,’’ said Fanny in a steely voice, “‘ it
don’t seem to me that your times add up right. You say
he made you this offer two seconds after he heard your
name. Well, why did it take you a quarter of an hour
to get back to this kitchen? If you want to know what
I think, it wasn’t a red-faced man with grey hair at all
—it was one of these Washington Square vamps and you
were flirting with her.”

“Fanny |”’

‘‘ Well, I’ve read Gingery Stories, and I know what it’s
like down here in Bohemia with all these artists and models
and everything.”’

Mullett drew himself up.

‘‘ Your suspicions pain me, Fanny. If you care to step
out on to the roof, you can peek in at the sitting-room
window and see him for yourself. He’s waiting there for
me to bring hima drink. The reason I was so long coming
back was that it took him ten minutes before he asked my
name. Up till then he just sat and spluttered.”’

“All right. Take me out on the roof.”

‘*Therel’’ said Mullett, a moment later. ‘‘ Now
perhaps you'll believe me.”’

Through the French windows of the sitting-room there
was undeniably visible a man of precisely the appearance
described. Fanny was remorseful.

“Did I wrong my poor little Freddy, then ? ’’ she said.

“Yes, you did.”’

“I’m sorry. There!’

She kissed him. Mullett melted immediately.

““ T must go back and get that drink,’ he said.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 109

‘‘ And I must be getting along.”

‘‘Oh, not yet,’’ begged Mullett.

‘* Yes, I must. I’ve got to look in at one or two of the
stores.”

“Fanny!”

‘* Well, a girl’s got to have her trousseau, hasn’t she? ”’

Mullett sighed.

‘* You'll be very careful, precious ? ” he said anxiously.

‘‘T’m always careful. Don’t you worry about me.”’

Mullett retired, and Fanny, blowing a parting kiss
from her pretty fingers, passed through the door leading
to the stairs.

It was perhaps five minutes later, while Mullett sat
dreaming golden dreams in the kitchen and Sigsbee H.
Waddington sat sipping his whisky-and-soda in the sitting-
room, that a sudden tap on the French window caused the
latter to give a convulsive leap and spill most of the liquid
down the front of his waistcoat.

He looked up. A girl was standing outside the window,
and from her gestures he gathered that she was requesting
him to open it.

§ 5

It was some time before Sigsbee H. Waddington could
bring himself to do so. There exist, no doubt, married
men of the baser sort who would have enjoyed the prospect
of a ¢éte-a-téte chat with a girl with snapping black eyes who
gesticulated at them through windows: but Sigsbee Wad-
dington was not one of them. By nature and training
he was circumspect to a degree. So for awhile he merely
stood and stared at Fanny. It was not until her eyes
became so imperative as to be practically hypnotic that
he brought himself to undo the latch.

“And about time, too,” said Fanny, with annoyance,
stepping softly into the room.

“What do you want?”

“IT want a little talk with you. What’s all this I

8

110 THE SMALL BACHELOR

hear about you asking people to perpetrate crimes for
you ?”’

Sigsbee Waddington’s conscience was in such a feverish
condition by now that this speech affected him as deeply as
the explosion of a pound of dynamite would havedone. His
vivid imagination leaped immediately to the supposition
that this girl who seemed so intimate with his private
affairs was one of those Secret Service investigation agents
who do so much to mar the comfort of the amateur in crime.

‘**T don’t know what you're talking about,’’ he croaked.

‘‘Oh, shucks!”’’ said Fanny impatiently. She was a
business girl, and disliked this beating about the bush.
‘‘ Freddy Mullett told me all about it. You wantsomeone
to do a job for you and he turned you down. Well, takea
look at the understudy. I’m here, and, if the job’s in my
line, lead me to it.”

Mr. Waddington continued to eye her warily. He had
now decided that she was trying to trap him into a damaging
admission. He said nothing, but breathed stertorously.

Fanny, a sensitive girl, misunderstood his silence. She
interpreted the look in his eye to indicate distrust of the
ability of a woman worker to deputize for the male.

“If it’s anything Freddy Mullett could do, I can do it,”
she said, She seemed to Mr, Waddington to flicker for a
moment. ‘‘See here!” she said.

Before Mr. Waddington’s fascinated gaze she held up
between her delicate fingers a watch and chain.

*‘ What's that ?”’ he gasped.

** What does it look like ? ”’

Mr. Waddington knew exactly what it looked like. He
felt his waistcoat dazedly.

‘“‘T didn’t see you take it.”

** Nobody don’t ever see me take it,’’ said Fanny proudly,
stating a profound truth. ‘ Well, then, now you've wit-
nessed the demonstration, perhaps you'll believe me when
I say that I’m not so worse. If Freddy can do it, I can do
it.”

& cool, healing wave of relief poured over Sigsbee H.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 11

Waddington’s harassed soul. He perceived that he had
wronged his visitor. She was not a detective, after all, but
a sweet, womanly woman who went about lifting things
out of people's pockets so deftly that they never saw them
go. Just the sort of girl he had been wanting to meet.

‘“‘T am sure you can,” he said fervently.

‘** Well, what’s the job? ”

*‘I want some one to steal a pearl necklace.”

‘‘ Where is it? ”’

‘‘In the strong-room at the bank.’’

Fanny’s mobile features expressed disappointment and
annoyance.

‘“‘Then what’s the use of talking about it? I’m nota
safe-smasher. I’m a delicately nurtured girl that never
used an oxy-acetylene blowpipe in her life.’’

“‘ Ah, but you don’t understand,” said Mr. Waddington
hastily. ‘‘ When I say that the necklace is in the strong-
room, I mean that it is there just now. Eventually it
will be taken out and placed among the other wedding-
presents,”

‘‘This begins to look more like it.”

‘*T can mention no names, of course...

**I don’t expect you to.”

“Then I will simply say that A, to whom the necklace
belongs, is shortly about to be married to B.”’

“‘I might have known it. Doing all those bridge prob-
lems together, they kind of got fond of one another.”

‘‘I have my reasons for thinking that the wedding will
take place down at Hempstead on Long Island, where C, A’s
step-mother, has her summer home.”’

““Why? Why not in New York?”

** Because,”’ said Mr. Waddington simply, *‘ I expressed
a wish that it should take place in New York.”

“‘What have you got to do with it?”

“‘IT am D., C’s husband.”’

‘Oh, the fellow who could fill a tank with water in six
hours fifteen minutes while C was filling another in five
hours forty-five? Pleased to meet you.”

112 THE SMALL BACHELOR

**I am now strongly in favour of the Hempstead idea,”
said Mr. Waddington. ‘‘ In New York it might be difficult
to introduce you into the house, whereas down at Hemp-
stead you can remain concealed in the garden till the suit-
able moment arrives. Down at Hempstead the presents
will be on view in the dining-room, which has French win-
dows opening on to a lawn flanked with shrubberies.”’

ee Eas { FY

** Just what I thought. I will, therefore, make a point
to-night of insisting that the wedding take place in New
York, and the thing will be definitely settled.”

Fanny eyed him reflectively.

“‘It all seems kind of,funny to me. If you’re D and
you're married to C and C is A’s step-mother, you must be
A’s father. What do you want to go stealing your daugh-
ter’s necklaces for? ”’

‘* Say, listen,’”’ said Mr. Waddington urgently, ‘‘ the first
thing you’ve got to get into your head is that you’re not to
ask questions.’’

‘‘Only my girlish curiosity.”

‘‘ Tie a can to it,’’ begged Mr. Waddington. ‘“‘ This isa
delicate business, and the last thing I want is anybody
snooping into motives and first causes. Just you go ahead,
like a nice girl, and get that necklace and pass it over to me
when nobody's looking, and then put the whole matter out
of your pretty little head and forget about it.’’

‘* Just as you say. And now, coming down to it, what
is there in it for me? ”’

‘‘Three hundred dollars,”’

‘‘Not nearly enough.”’

“It’s all I’ve got.”

Fanny meditated. Three hundred dollars, though a
meagre sum, was three hundred dollars. You could always
use three hundred dollars when you were furnishing, and
the job, as outlined, seemed simple.

“All right,” she said.

**'You'll do it?”

“Im on.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 118

“Good girl,’ said Mr. Waddington ‘‘ Where can I
find you when I want you?”

“‘ Here’s my address.”’

‘“‘T’ll send you a line. You've got the thing clear?”

““Sure. I hang about in the bushes till there’s nobody
around, and then I slip into the room and snitch the
necklace .. .”’

‘‘. , and hand it over to me.”

** Sure.”

‘‘T’ll be waiting in the garden just outside, and I’! meet
you the moment you come out. The very moment.
Thus,”’ said Mr. Waddington with a quiet, meaning look at
his young friend, ‘“‘ avoiding any rannygazoo.”’

‘“‘What do you mean by rannygazoo?”’ said Fanny
warmly.

‘‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Mr. Waddington, with a
deprecating wave of the hand. “’ Just rannygazoo.”’

CHAPTER SEVEN

HERE are, as everybody knows, many ways of
measuring time: and right through the ages
learned men have argued heatedly in favour of

their different systems. Hipparchus of Rhodes sneered
every time anybody mentioned Marinus of Tyre to him:
and the views of Ahmed Ibn Abdallah of Baghdad gave
Purbach and Regiomontanus the laugh of their lives. Pur-
bach in his bluff way said the man must be a perfect ass :
and when Regiomontanus, whose motto was Live and let
live, urged that Ahmed Ibn was just a young fellow trying
to get along and ought not to be treated too harshly, Pur-
bach said Was that so ? and Regiomontanus said Yes, that
was so, and Purbach said that Regiomontanus made him
sick. It was their first quarrel.

Tycho Brahe measured time by means of altitudes,
quadrants, azimuths, cross-staves, armillary spheres and
parallactic rules: and, as he often said to his wife when
winding up the azimuth and putting the cat out for the
night, nothing could be fairer than that. And thenin 1863
along came Dollen with his Dre Zestbestitmmung vermitteslt
des tragbaren Durchgangsinsirument 1m Verticale des Polar-
stens (a best-seller in its day, subsequently filmed under the
title Purple Sins), and proved that Tycho, by mistaking an
armillary sphere for a quadrant one night after a bump-
supper at Copenhagen University, had got his calculations
all wrong.

The truth is that time cannot be measured. To George
Finch, basking in the society of Molly Waddington, the next
three wecks seemed but a flash. Whereas to Hamilton
Beamish, with the girl he loved miles away in East Gilead,
Idaho, it appeared incredible that any sensible person could
suppése that a day contained only twenty-four hours.

114

THE SMALL BACHELOR 118

There were moments when Hamilton Beamish thought
that something must have happened to the sidereal moon
and that time was standing still.

But now the three weeks were up, and at any minute he
might hear that she was back in the metropolis. All day
long he had been going about with a happy smile on his
face, and it was with a heart that leaped and sang from pure
exuberance that he now turned to greet Officer Garroway,
who had just presented himself at his apartment.

‘Ah, Garroway!’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ How
goes it? What brings you here?”

‘“‘T understood you to say, sir,” replied the policeman,
“that I was to bring you my poem when I had completed
it.’

‘‘Of course, of course. I had forgotten all about it.
Something seems to have happened to my memory these
days. So you have written your first poem, eh? All
about love and youth and springtime, I suppose? ...
Excuse me.”

The telephone bell had rung: and Hamilton Beamish,
though the instrument had disappointed him over and over
again in the past few days, leaped excitedly to snatch up the
receiver.

“‘ Hello?”

This time there was no disappointment. The voice that
spoke was the voice he had heard so often in his dreams,

‘Mr. Beamish. I mean, Jimmy? ”’

Hamilton Beamish drew a deep breath. And so over-
come was he with sudden joy that for the first time since he
had reached years of discretion he drew it through the
mouth.

“At last!’’ he cried.

‘‘What did you say?”

‘‘T said‘ At last!’ Since you went away every minute
has seemed an hour.”

‘So it has to me.”

‘‘Do you mean that?’ breathed Hamilton Beamish
fervently. °

116 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘Yes. That’s the way minutes do seem in East Gilead.”’

““Oh, ah, yes,” said Mr. Beamish, a little damped.
**'When did you get back? ”’

*‘ A quarter of an hour ago.”

Hamilton Beamish’s spirits soared once more.

“* And you called me up at once!”’ he said emotionally.

“Yes. I wanted to know Mrs. Waddington’s telephone
number at Hempstead ”’

“Was that the only reason ? ”’

** Of course not. I wanted to hear how you were . y «

**Did you? Did you?’

** ,.. and if you had missed me.”

“Missed you!”

“Did you?”

Did I!”

** How sweet of you. I should have thought you would
have forgotten my very existence.”

“*Guk!’’ said Hamilton Beamish, completely overcome.

“* Well, shall I tell you something ? I missed you, too.”

Hamilton Beamish drew another completely unscientific
deep breath, and was about to pour his whole soul into the
instrument in a manner that would probably have fused the
wire, when a breezy masculine voice suddenly smote his
ear-drum.

“Is that Ed.?’’ inquired the voice.

*‘No,”’ thundered Hamilton Beamish.

*“‘ This is Charley, Ed. Is it all mght for Friday?”

“It is not !’’ boomed Hamilton Beamish. ‘“‘ Get off the
wire, you blot! Go away, curse you!”’

“Certainly, if you want me to,’’ said a sweet, feminine
voice. “‘But.. .”

“I beg your pardon! JIamsorry, sorry, sorry. A fiend
in human shape got on the wire,”’ explained Mr. Beamish
hastily.

“Oh! Well, what were we saying? ”’

““T was just going to.. ”

“‘I remember. Mrs. Waddington’s telephone number.
I wa? looking through my mail just now, and I found an

THE SMALL BACHELOR 117

invitation from Miss Waddington to her wedding. I see it’s
to-morrow. Fancy that!”

Hamilton Beamish would have preferred to speak of other
things than trivialities like George Finch’s wedding, but he
found it difficult to change the subject.

“Yes. It is to take place at Hempstead to-morrow.
George is staying down there at the inn.”

‘It’s going to be a quiet country wedding, then ? ”’

“Yes. I think Mrs. Waddington wants to hush George
up as much as possible.”’

““ Poor George !”’

‘‘T am going down by the one-thirty train. Couldn't we
travel together ? ”’

‘“‘T’m not sure that I shall beable togo. Ihave an awful
lot of things to see to here, after being away solong. Shall
we leave it open? ”’

‘* Very well,’’ said Hamilton Beamish resignedly. ‘‘ But,
in any case, can you dine with me to-morrow night ? ”’

‘“*T should love it.”

Hamilton Beamish’s eyes closed, and he snuffled for
awhile.

‘‘And what is Mrs. Waddington’s number ? ”’

‘‘ Hempstead 4076.”

** Thanks.”’

“‘We'll dine at the Purple Chicken, shall we?”

** Splendid.”’

““You can always get it there, if they know you.”

“Do they know you? ”’

** Intimately.”’

“Fine! Well, good-bye.”

Hamilton Beamish stood for a few moments in deep
thought: then, turning away from the instrument, was
astonished to perceive Officer Garroway.

“I'd forgotten all about you,” he said. ‘“‘ Let me see,
what did you say you had come for?”

“To read you my poem, sir.”

“* Ah yes, of course.”

The policeman coughed modestly.

118 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“It is just a little thing, Mr. Beamish—a sort of study;
you might say, of the streets of New York as they appear to
a policeman on his beat. I would like to read it to you, if
you will permit me”

Officer Garroway shifted his Adam’s apple up and down
once or twice: and, closing his eyes, began to recite in the
special voice which he as a rule reserved for giving evidence
before magistrates.

‘Streets |’

‘That is the title, eh? ”’

‘Yes, sir. And also the first line.”

Hamilton Beamish started.

“Is it vers libre? ”’

Sirt*

** Doesn’t it rhyme? ”

**No, sir. I understood you to say that rhymes were an
outworn convention.”

‘‘Did I really say that ?”’

‘* You did, indeed, sir. And a great convenience I found
it. It seems to make poetry quite easy.”

Hamilton Beamish looked at him perplexedly. He
supposed he must have spoken the words which the other
had quoted, and yet that he should deliberately have wished
to exclude a fellow-creature from the pure joy of rhyming
‘heart ’ with ‘ Cupid’s dart ’ seemed to him in his present
uplifted state inconceivable.

‘Odd!’ he said. ‘‘ Very odd. However, go on.”

Officer Garroway went once more through the motions of
swallowing something large and sharp, and shut his eyes
again,

Streets !

Grim, relentless, sordid streets |

Miles of poignant streets,

East, West, North,

And stretching starkly South ;

Sad, hopeless, dismal, cheerless, chilling
Streets |’

Hamilton Beamish raised his eyebrows,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 119

“I pace the mournful streets
With aching heart.’
‘Why ?”’ asked Hamilton Beamish.
*“‘ It is part of my duties, sir. Each patrolman is assigned
a certain portion of the city as a beat.’
“‘I mean, why do you pace with aching heart?”
** Because it is bleeding, sir.’’
** Bleeding ? You mean your heart?”
“Yes, sir. My heartis bleeding. I look at all the sordid
gloom and sorrow and my heart bleeds.”’
‘Well, go on. It all seems very peculiar to me, but ge
on.”’
*I watch grey men slink past
With shifty, sidelong eyes
That gleam with murderous hate;
Lepers that prowl! the streets.’

Hamilton Beamish seemed about to speak, but checked
himself.

‘Men who once were men,

Women that once were women,

Children like wizened apes,

And dogs that snarl and snap and growl and hate,
Streets |

Loathsome, festering streets |

I pace the scabrous streets

And long for death.’

Officer Garroway stopped, and opened his eyes: and
Hamilton Beamish, crossing the room to where he stood,
slapped him briskly on the shoulder.

‘‘T see it all,” he said. ‘‘ What’s wrong with you is
liver. Tell me, have you any local pain and tenderness ? ”’

“No, sir.”

‘‘High temperature accompanied by shiverings and
occasional rigors? ”’

ee N Oo, sir.”’

‘‘ Then you have not a hepatic abscess. All that is the
matter, I imagine, is a slight sluggishness in the cesophageal
groove, which can be set right with calomel. My dear'Gar-

120 THE SMALL BACHELOR

roway, it surely must be obvious to you that this poem
of yours is all wrong. It is absurd for you to pretend that
you do not see a number of pleasant and attractive people
on your beat. The streets of New York are full of the most
delightful persons. I have noticed them on all sides. The
trouble is that you have been looking on them with a bilious
eye.”

‘But I thought you told me to be stark and poignant,
Mr. Beamish.”’

‘*‘ Nothing of the kind. You must have misunderstood
me. Starkness is quite out of place in poetry. A poem
should be a thing of beauty and charm and sentiment, and
have as its theme the sweetest and divinest of all human
emotions—Love. Only Love can inspire the genuine bard.
Love, Garroway, is a fire that glows and enlarges, until it
warms and beams upon multitudes, upon the universal heart
of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with
its generous flames. Shakespeare speaks of the ecstasy of
love and Shakespeare knew what he was talking about.
Ah, better to live in the lowliest cot, Garroway, than pine in
a palace alone. In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed :
in war he mounts the warrior’s steed. In halls, in gay
attire is seen; in hamlets, dances on the green. Love
rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below and
saints above; for love is heaven and heaven is love. Get
these simple facts into your silly fat head, Garroway, and
you may turn out a poem worth reading. If, however, you
are going to take this absurd attitude about festering
streets and scabrous dogs and the rest of it, you are simply
wasting your time and would be better employed writing
sub-titles for the motion-pictures.”’

Officer Garroway was not a man of forceful character.
He bowed his head meekly before the storm.

‘‘T see what you mean, Mr. Beamish.”

*‘T should hope you did. I have put it plainly enough.
I dislike intensely this modern tendency on the part of
young writers to concentrate on corpses and sewers and
desptir. They should be writing about Love. I tell thee

THE SMALL BACHELOR 121

Love {is nature’s second sun, Garroway, causing a spring of
virtues where he shines. All love is sweet, given or returned.
Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not
ever. True love’s the gift which God has given to man
alone beneath the heaven. It is not—mark this, Garro-
way |—it is not fantasy’s hot fire, whose wishes soon as
granted die. It liveth not in fierce desire, with erce
desire it does not die. It is the secret sympathy, the silver
link, the silken tie, which heart to heart and mind to mind
in body and in soul can bind.”

“Yes, sir. Exactly, Mr. Beamish. I quite see that.”

“* Then go away and rewrite your poem on the lines I have
indicated.”’

‘‘Yes, Mr. Beamish.’”’ The policeman paused. ‘‘ Before
I go, there is just one other thing. ”

‘‘ There is no other thing in the world that matters except
love.”’

‘‘ Well, sir, there are the motion-pictures, to which you
made a brief allusion just now, and . .”

‘“‘ Garroway,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, “‘ I trust that you
are not going to tell me that, after all I have done to try to
make you a poet, you wish to sink to writing motion-picture
scenarios ? ”’

‘‘No,sir. No,indeed. But some little time ago I hap-
pened to purchase a block of stock in a picture company,
and so far all my efforts to dispose of it have proved fruit-
less. I have begun to entertain misgivings as to the value
of these shares, and I thought that, while I was here, I
would ask you if you knew anything about them.”

‘“What is the company ? ”’

‘‘The Finer and Better Motion Picture Company of
Hollywood, California, Mr. Beamish.”

‘‘ How many shares did you buy?”

‘Fifty thousand dollars worth.”

‘“‘ How much did you pay?”

“Three hundred dollars.’

‘You were stung,” said Hamilton Beamish. ‘“ The
stock is so much waste paper. Who sold it to you? F

122 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘T have unfortunately forgotten his name. He was a
man with a red face and grey hair. And if I'd got him here
now,” said Officer Garroway with honest warmth, “‘ I’d
soak him so hard it would jolt his grand-children. The
smooth, salve-slinging crocodile | ’’

‘‘ It is a curious thing,’’ said Hamilton Beamish musingly,
*‘ there seems to be floating at the back of my consciousness
a sort of nebulous memory having to do with this very stock
you mention. I seem to recall somebody at some time and
place consulting me about it. No, it’s no good, it won’t
come back. I have been much preoccupied of late, and
things slip my mind. Well, run along, Garroway, and set
about re-writing that poem of yours.”’

The policeman’s brow was dark. There was a rebellious
look in his usually mild eyes.

‘‘Re-wmite it nothing! It’s the goods.’’

** Garroway |’

‘IT said New York was full of lepers, and soitis. Nasty,
oily, lop-eared lepers that creep up to a fellow and sell him
scabrous stock that’s not worth the paper it’s printed on.
That poem is nght, and I don’t alter a word of it. No,
sir |”’

Hamilton Beamish shook his head.

‘* One of these days, Garroway, love will awaken in your
heart and you will change your views.”’

“‘ One of these days,’’ replied the policeman frigidly, ‘I
shall meet that red-faced guy again, and I’) change his face.
It won't be only my heart that’ll be aching by the time I’ve
finished with him.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

EORGE FINCH’S wedding-day dawned fair and
(5 bright. The sun beamed down as if George by
getting married were doing it a personal favour.
The breezes, playing about him, brought with them a
faint but well-defined scent of orange-blossom. And from
the moment when they had finished the practical business
of getting outside their early worm, all the birds for miles
around had done nothing but stand in the trees singing
Mendelsohnn’s Wedding March. It was the sort of day to
make a man throw out his chest and say ‘ Tra-la!’: and
George did so.

Delightful, he reflected. as he walked up from the inn after
lunch, to think that in a few short hours he and Molly would
be bowling away together in a magic train, each revolution
of its wheels taking them nearer to the Islands of the Blest
and—what was almost more agreeable—farther away from
Mrs. Waddington.

It would be idle to deny that in the past three weeks
George Finch had found his future mother-in-law some-
thing of a trial. Her consistent failure to hide the pain
which the mere sight of him so obviously caused her was
damping to an impressionable young man. George was not
vain, and if Molly’s stepmother had been content to look
at him simply as if she thought he was something the cat
had dragged out of the dust-bin, he could have borne up.
But Mrs. Waddington went further. Her whole attitude
betrayed her belief that the cat, on inspecting George, had
been disappointed. Seeing what it had got, her manner
suggested, it had given him the look of chagrin which cats
give when conscious of effort wasted and had gone elsewhere
to try again. A lover, counting the days until the only girl
in the world shall be his, will see sweetness and light in

123

124 THE SMALL BACHELOR

practically everything : but George Finch, despite his most
earnest endeavours, had been compelled to draw the line at
Mrs. Waddington.

However, these little annoyances were, after all, the
merest trifles: and the thought, as he approached the
house, that inside it there sat a suffering woman who, think-
ing of him, mourned and would not be comforted, did
nothing to diminish his mood of overflowing happiness.
He entered the grounds, humming lightly: and, starting
to pass up the drive, came upon Hamilton Beamish, smoking
a thoughtful cigarette.

“Hullo,” said George. ‘So you’ve got here ? ”

** Correct,”’ said Hamilton Beamish.

““ How do you think Molly is looking? ”

“Charming. But I only caught a glimpse of her as
she was hurrying off.”’

“ Hurrying off ? ”’

“Yes. There has been a slight hitch in the proceedings.
Didn’t you know? ”

“My God! Tell me!” said George, clutching his
friend’s arm.

“Ouch !” said Hamilton Beamish, releasing the arm
and rubbing it. “It is nothing to get excited about.
All that has happened is that the clergyman who was to
have married you has met with an accident. His wife
telephoned just now to say that, while standing on a chair
and trying to reach down a volume of devotional thought
from an upper shelf, he fell and sprained his ankle.”

“The poor fish!” said George warmly. ‘‘ What does
he want to go doing that sort of thing for at a time like
this? A man ought to decide once and for all at the
outset of his career whether he is a clergyman or an acro-
bat and never deviate from his chosen path. This is
awful news, Hamilton. I must rush about and try to
find a substitute. Good heavens! An hour or so before
the wedding, and no clergyman!”

“Calm yourself, George. The necessary steps are being
taken. I think Mrs. Waddington would have been just

THE SMALL BACHELOR 125

as pleased to let the whole thing drop, but Molly became
very active. She telephoned in all directions, and even-
tually succeeded in locating a disengaged minister in the
neighbourhood of Flushing. She and Mrs. Waddington
have gone off together in the car to fetch him. They
will be back in about an hour and a half.”

“You mean to tell me,’’ demanded George, paling,
“that I shall not see Molly for an hour and a half? ”

“* Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I quote Thomas
Haynes Bayly. And Frederick William Thomas, a poet of
the early nineteenth century, amplifies this thought in the
lines :

**Tis said that absence conquers love:
But oh, believe it not:
I've tried, alas, its power to prove,
But thou art not forgot.’

Be a man, George. Clench your hands and try to endure.”

“It’s sickening.”

‘Be brave,” said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ I knowjust how
you feel. I, also, am going through the torment of being
parted from the one woman.”

‘“* Absolutely sickening! A clergyman, and not able to
stand on a chair without falling off!’ A sudden, grue-
some thought struck him. “ Hamilton! What’s it a sign
of when the clergyman falls off a chair and sprains his
ankle on the morning of the wedding ? ”

‘“‘ How do you mean, what is it a sign of ? ”

‘*I mean, is it bad luck?”

“For the clergyman, undoubtedly.”

“You don’t think it means that anything is going to
go wrong with the wedding?”

‘‘I have never heard of any such superstition. You
must endeavour to control these fancies, George. You
are allowing yourself to get into a thoroughly overwrought
condition.”

‘‘ Well, what sort of a condition do you expect a fellow
to be in on his wedding morning, with clergymen falling
off chairs wherever he looks ?”

9

126 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Hamilton smiled tolerantly.

‘I suppose nerves are inevitable on such an occasion.
I notice that even Sigsbee H., who can scarcely consider
himself a principal in this affair, is thoroughly jumpy.
He was walking on the lawn some little time ago, and when
I came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder,
he leaped like a startled roe. If Sigsbee H. Waddington
possessed a mind, I would say that there was something
on it. No doubt he is brooding on the West again.”

The sun was still shining brightly, but somehow the day
seemed to George to have grown overcast and chill. A grey
foreboding had come upon him.

“TI wish this hadn’t happened.”

“Exactly what the clergyman said.”

“It isn’t fair that a delicate, highly-strung girl like Molly
should be upset like this at such a time.”

“TI think you exaggerate the effects of the occur-
rence on Molly. She seemed to me to be bearing it with
equanimity.”

“‘She wasn’t pale?”

“‘ Not in the least.”

“Or agitated ? ”

*‘ She seemed quite her normal self.”

“Thank God!” said George.

“In fact, the last thing she said to Ferris, as the car
drove away, was... .”

“ What ? ”

Hamilton Beamish had broken off. He was frowning.

‘““My memory is terrible. It is the effect, of course, of
love. I have just remembered .. .”

“What did Molly say? ”

“‘T have forgotten. But I have just remembered what
it was that I was told to tell you as soon as you arrived.
It is curious how often the mention of a name will, as it
were, strike a chord. I spoke of Ferris, and it has just
come back to me that Ferris gave me a message for you.”

“Oh, darn Ferris!”

“He asked me, when I saw you, to say that a female

THE SMALL BACHELOR 127

of some kind was calling you up on the telephone earlier
in the morning. He told her that you were at the inn,
and advised her to get you there, but she said it didn’t
matter, as she was coming down here immediately. She
said she had known you in East Gilead.”

““Oh ?” said George indifferently.

** And her name, if I remember rightly, was Dubbs or
Tubbs or Jubbs or—no, I have it. My memory is better
than I supposed. It was May Stubbs. Does it convey
anything to you?”

CHAPTER NINE

T chanced that as he spoke these light and casual words
I Hamilton Beamish, glancing down, noted that his shoe-
lace had come untied. Stooping to attend to this,
he missed seeing George’s face. Nor—for he was a man
who concentrated even on the lightest task the full atten-
tion of a great mind—did he hear the other’s sudden whist-
ling gasp of astonishment and horror. A moment later,
however, he observed out of the corner of his eye some-
thing moving: and, looking, perceived that George’s
legs were wobbling strangely.

Hamilton Beamish straightened himself. He was now
in a position to see George steadily and see him whole:
and the spectacle convinced him at once that something
in the message he had just delivered must have got right
in among his friend’s ganglions. George Finch’s agreeable
features seemed to be picked out in a delicate Nile-green.
His eyes were staring. His lower jaw had fallen. Nobody
who had ever seen a motion-picture could have had the
least doubt as to what he was registering. It was dismay.

‘““My dear George!’’ said Hamilton Beamish, con-
cerned.

“Wok... Wuk... Wok...” George swallowed
desperately. ‘“‘ Wok name did you say ? ”

“May Stubbs.” Hamilton Beamish’s expression grew
graver, and he looked at his friend with a sudden suspicion.
“Tell me all, George. It is idle to pretend that the name
is strange to you. Obviously it has awakened deep and
unpleasant memories. I trust, George, that this is not
some poor girl with whose happiness you have toyed in
the past, some broken blossom that you have culled and
left to perish by the wayside ? ”

Gebrge Finch was staring before him in a sort of stupor.

128

THE SMALL BACHELOR 129

“ All is over!’ he said dully.

Hamilton Beamish softened.

“‘Confide in me. Weare friends. I will not judge you
harshly, George.”

A sudden fury melted the ice of George’s torpor.

“It’s all that parson’s fault!’ he cried vehemently. “I
knew all along it meant bad luck. Gosh, what a Paradise
this world would be if only clergymen could stand on chairs
without spraining their ankles! I’m done for.”’

“Who is this May Stubbs ? ”

“I knew her in East Gilead,” said George hopelessly.
“We were sort of engaged.”

Hamilton Beamish pursed his lips.

“‘ Apart from the slovenly English of the phrase, which
is perhaps excusable in the circumstances, I cannot see
how you can have been ‘sort of’ engaged. A man is
either engaged or he is not.”

““Not where I come from. In East Gilead they have
what they call understandings.”

“And there was an understanding between you and
this Miss Stubbs ? ”

“Yes. Just one of those boy and girl affairs. You
know. You see a girl home once or twice from church,
and you take her to one or two picnics, and people kid you
about her, and ... well, there you are. I suppose she
thought we were engaged. And now she’s read in the
papers about my wedding, and has come to make herself
unpleasant.”’

“Did you and this girl quarrel before you separated ? ”

“No. We sort of drifted apart. I took it for granted
that the thing was over and done with. And when I saw
Molly .. .”

Hamilton Beamish laid a hand upon his arm.

“George,” he said, ‘‘I want you to give me your full
attention : for we have arrived now at the very core of the
matter. Were there any letters?”

“‘Dozens. And of course she has kept them. a used
to sleep with them under her pillow.”

180 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“*Bad!” said Hamilton Beamish, shaking his head.
“Very bad!”

“* And I remember her saying once that she believed in
breach of promise suits.”

Hamilton Beamish frowned. He seemed to be deplor-
ing the get-rich-quick spirit of the modern girl, who is
not content to sit down and wait for her alimony.

* You think it certain that she is coming here with the
intention of making trouble ? ”

‘‘ What other reason could she have? ”

“Yes, I fancy you are right. I must think. I must
think. Let me think.”

And, so saying, Hamilton Beamish turned sharply to the
left and began to walk slowly round in a circle, his hands
behind his back and his face bent and thoughtful. His eyes
searched the ground as if to wrest inspiration from it.

Few sights in this world are more inspiring than that of
a great thinker actually engaged in thought: and yet
George Finch, watching his friend, chafed. He had a
perhaps forgivable craving for quick results : and Hamilton
Beamish, though impressive, did not seem to be getting
anywhere.

‘‘Have you thought of anything?” he asked, as the
other came round for the third time.

Hamilton Beamish held up a hand in silent reproof,
and resumed his pacing. Presently he stopped.

“Yes ?”’ said George.

“With regard to this engagement... .”

“Tt wasn’t an engagement. It was an understanding.”

“With regard to this understanding or engagement,
the weak spot in your line of defence is undoubtedy the
fact that it was you who broke it off.”

“But I didn’t break it off.”

“‘T used the wrong expression. I should have said that
it was you who took the initiative. You left East Gilead
and came to New York. Therefore, technically, you
deserted this girl.”

“‘@ wish you wouldn’t say things like that. Can’t you

THE SMALL BACHELOR 181

understand that it was just one of those boy and girl
affairs which come to an end of themselves ? ”

“‘T was looking at the thing from a lawyer’s view-point.
And may I point out that the affair appears not to have
come toanend. What I am trying to make clear is this:
that, if you had wished it to come to an end, you should,
before you left East Gilead, have arranged somehow that
this Miss Stubbs broke off the engagement.”

“‘ Understanding.”

“The engagement or understanding. That would have
cleaned the slate. You should have done something that
would have made her disgusted with you.”

“How could I? I’m not the sort of fellow who can
do things like that.”

‘“‘Even now, it seems to me, if you could do something
that would revolt this Miss Stubbs . . . make her recoil
from you with loathing...”

‘Well, what ? ”

“IT must think,” said Hamilton Beamish.

He did four more laps.

“Suppose you had committed some sort of crime?”
he said, returning to the fixed point. ‘‘ Suppose she were
to find out you were a thief? She wouldn’t want to marry
you if you were on your way to Sing-Sing.”’

““No. And neither would Molly.”

“True. JI must think again.”

It was some moments later that George, eyeing his
friend with the growing dislike which those of superior
brain-power engender in us when they fail to deliver the
goods in our times of crisis, observed him give a sudden
start.

‘‘I think JI have it,” said Hamilton Beamish.

* Well?”

“This Miss Stubbs. Tell me, is she strait-laced ?
Prudish ? Most of those village girls are.”

George reflected.

‘“‘I don’t remember ever having noticed. I never did
anything to make her prudish about.” -

182 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘I think we may assume that, having lived all her life
in a spot like East Gilead, she is. The solution of this
difficulty, then, is obviously to lead her to suppose that
you have become a reprobate.”

“A what?”

“A Don Juan. A Lothario. A libertine. It should
be perfectly easy. She has seen motion-pictures of life
in New York, and will not be hard to convince that you
have deteriorated since you came to live there. Our
plan of action now becomes straightforward and simple.
All we have to do is to get some girl to come along and
say that you have no right to marry anybody but her.”

“* What |”

“IT can see the scene now. This Miss Stubbs is sitting
beside you, a dowdy figure in her home-made village
gown. You are talking of the old days. You are stroking
her hand. Suddenly you look up and start. The door has
opened and a girl, all in black with a white face, is entering.
Her eyes are haggard, her hair disordered. In her arms
she clasps a little bundle.”

“No, no! Not that!”

“Very well, we will dispense with the bundle. She
stretches out her arms to you. She totters. You rush
to support her. The scene is similar to one in Haddon
Chambers’ ‘ Passers-By.’ ’”’

““What happened in that?”

“What could happen? The fiancée saw the ruined
girl had the greater claim, so she joined their hands together
and crept silently from the room.”

George laughed mirthlessly.

“There’s just one thing you’re overlooking. Where are
we going to get the white-faced girl?”

Hamilton Beamish stroked his chin.

“There is that difficulty. I must think.”

“And while you're thinking,” said George coldly, “ I'll
do the only practical thing there is to be done, and go
down to the station and meet her, and have a talk with
her gnd try to get her to be sensible.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 188

“ Perhaps that would be as well. But I still feel that
my scheme would be the ideal one, if only we could find
the girl, It is too bad that you have not a dark past.”

“My dark past,” said George bitterly, ‘‘is all ahead of
me.”

He turned and hurried down the drive. Hamilton Bea-
mish, still meditating, made his way towards the house.

He had reached the lawn, when, as he stopped to light
a cigarette to assist thought, he saw a sight that made
him drop the match and draw back into the shelter of a
tree.

Hamilton Beamish stopped, looked and listened. A girl
had emerged from a clump of rhododendrons, and was
stealing softly round the lawn towards the dining-room
window.

Girlhood is the season of dreams. To Fanny Welch,
musing over the position of affairs after Sigsbee H. Wad-
dington had given her her final instructions, there had
come a quaint, fantastic thought, creeping into her mind
like a bee into a flower—the thought that if she got to the
house an hour earlier than the time he had mentioned, it
might be possible for her to steal the necklace and keep
it for herself.

The flaw in the scheme, as originally outlined, had seemed
to her all along to lie in the fact that Mr. Waddington was
to preside over the enterprise and take the loot from her
the moment she had got it. The revised plan appeared
immeasurably more attractive, and she proceeded to put
it into action.

Luck seemed to be with her. Nobody was about, the
window was ajar, and there on the table lay that which
she had now come to look on in the light of a present for
a good girl. She crept out of her hiding-place, stole round
the edge of the lawn, entered the room, and had just
grasped the case in her hand, when it was borne sharply
in upon her that luck was not with her so much as she had
supposed. A heavy hand was placed upon her shoudder i

184 THE SMALL BACHELOR

and, twisting round, she perceived a majestic-looking
man with a square chin and horn-rimmed spectacles.

“Well, young lady!” said this person.

Fanny breathed hard. These little contretemps are
the risk of the profession, but that makes them none the
easier to bear philosophically.

‘“* Put down that jewel-case.”’

Fanny did so. There was a pause. Hamilton Beamish
moved to the window, blocking it up.

“Well? ” said Fanny.

Hamilton Beamish adjusted his spectacles.

“Well, you’ve got me. What are you going to do?”

** What do you expect me to do? ”

“Turn me over to the police ? ”

The figure in the window nodded curtly. Fanny clasped
her hands together. Her eyes filled with tears.

“‘Don’t turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did
it for ma’s sake .. .”

*‘ All wrong! ”

“If you was out of work and starvin’ and you had to sit
and watch your poor old ma bendin’ over the wash-tub.. .”

‘“‘ All wrong! ”’ repeated Hamilton Beamish forcefully.

“What do you mean, all wrong?”

‘Mere crude Broadway melodrama. That stuff might
deceive some people, but not me.”

Fanny shrugged her shoulders.

“‘ Well, I thought it was worth trying,” she said.

Hamilton Beamish was regarding her keenly. That
busy brain was never still, and now it had begun to work
with even more than its normal intensity.

“Are you an actress? ”

“Me ? I should say not. My folks are awful particular.”

“Well, you have considerable dramatic ability. There
was a ring of sincerity in that drivel you just recited which
would have convinced most men. I think I could use you
in a little drama which I have been planning. I'll make
a bargain with you. I have no wish to send you to prison.’

“Spoken like a man.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 185

“I ought to, of course.”

“Yes, but it’s a lot better fun doing things that you
oughtn’t, isn’t it?”

“Well, the point is, I have a friend who is in a difficulty,
and it occurs to me that you can get him out.”

“‘ Always glad to oblige.”

“‘ My friend is going to be married to-day, and he has
just heard that a previous fiancée of his, whom in the excite-
ment inseparable from falling in love with the girl who is
to be his bride he had unfortunately overlooked, is on her
way here.”

“To make trouble ? ”

“* Precisely.”

*‘ Well, what can I do about it? ”

“* Just this. For five minutes I want you to play the
réle of my friend’s discarded victim.”

“IT don’t get it.”

“‘T will put it more plainly. In a short while this girl
will arrive, probably in company with my friend, who
has gone to meet her at the station. You will be waiting
outside here. At an appropriate moment you will rush
into the room, hold out your arms to my friend and cry
‘George! George! Why did you desert me? You don’t
belong to that girl there. You belong to me—the woman
you have wronged !’”

“Not on your life!”

“What!”

‘Fanny drew herself up haughtily.

“Not on your life!” she said. ‘“‘ Suppose my husband
got to hear of it!”

‘“‘ Are you married ? ”

“* Married this morning at the Little Church Round The
Corner.”

“And you come here and try to steal things on your
wedding-day !| ”

“Why not? You know as well as I do what it costs
nowadays to set up house.”

“ Surely it would be a severe shock to your husbaad to

186 THE SMALL BACHELOR

find that you had been sent to prison? I think you had
better be reasonable.”

Fanny scraped the floor with her shoe.

“Would this thing you want me to do get into the

pers?”

** Good heavens, no!”

*‘ And there’s another thing. Suppose I did come in
and pull that spiel, who would believe it ? ”

“The girl would. She is very simple.”

** She must be.”

*‘ Just an ignorant village girlk The sort who would
naturally recoi] from a man in the circumstances I have
outlined.”

“‘ Suppose they ask me questions ? ”

*‘ They won't.”

“But suppose they do? Suppose the girl says, Where
did you meet him and when did all this happen and what
the hell and all like that, what do I say?”

Hamilton Beamish considered the point.

“T think the best plan would be for you to pretend,
immediately after you have spoken the words I have
indicated, that emotion has made you feel faint. Yes,
that is best. Having said those words, exclaim, ‘ Air!
Air! I want air!’ and rush out.”

“Now you're talking. I like that bit about rushing
out. I'll go so quick, they won’t see me.”

“Then you are prepared to do this thing ? ”

“* Looks as if I’d got to.”

“Good. Kindly run through your opening speech. I
must see that you are letter-perfect.”

“George! George! .. .”

“Pause before the second George and take in breath.
Remember that the intensity or loudness of the voice
depends on the amplitude of the movement of the vocal
chords, while pitch depends on the number of vibrations
per second. Tone is strengthened by the resonance of the
air on the air-passages and in the pharyngeal and oral
cavidies, Once more, please.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 187

““Geurge! George! Why did you desert me?...’

** Arms extended.”

“You don’t belong to that girl there.”

*‘ Pause. Breath.”

“You belong to me—the woman you have wronged |”

Hamilton Beamish nodded with restrained approval.

*‘Not bad. Not at all bad. I should have liked, if it
had been possible, to have an expert examine your thyro-
arytenoid ligaments: and I wish there had been time for
you to study my booklet on ‘ Voice Production’... .
However, I think it will do. Now go back and hide in
the rhododendrons. This girl may be arriving at any
moment.”

CHAPTER TEN

AMILTON BEAMISH strolled out into the hall.

H Something attempted, something done, had earned

a cigarette. He was just lighting one, when there

was a grinding of wheels on the gravel, and through the

open door he saw Madame Eulalie alighting from a red
two-seater car. He skipped joyously to meet her.

‘‘So you managed to come after all!”

Madame Eulalie shook his hand with that brisk amia-
bility which was one of her main charms.

“Yes. But I’ve got to turn right round and go back
again. I’ve three appointments this afternoon. I sup-
pose you're staying on for the wedding? ”’

‘‘T had intended to. I promised George I would be his
best man.”’

‘‘ That’s a pity. I could have driven you back.”’

‘Oh, I can easily cancel the thing,’’ said Hamilton
Beamish quickly. ‘* In fact, I will, directly George returns.
He can get dozens of best men—dozens.”’

‘“‘Returns? Where has he gone? ”’

‘‘To the station.”

‘‘What a nuisance. JI came specially to see him. Still,
{t doesn’t matter. JI had better see Miss Waddington for
a moment, I suppose.”’

** She is out.”’

Madame Eulalie raised her eyebrows.

“* Doesn’t anybody stay in the house in these parts when
there’s going to be a wedding? ”’

‘‘There has been a slight accident,’’ explained Hamil-
ton Beamish. ‘‘ The clergyman sprained his ankle, and
Mrs. Waddington and Molly had gone to Flushing to
pick up an understudy. And George has gone to the
station...”

138

THE SMALL BACHELOR 189

** Yes, why has George gone to the station ? ”’

Hamilton Beamish hesitated. Then, revolted by the
thought that he should be hiding anything from this girl,
he spoke.

“Can you keep a secret ? ”’

“‘T don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

“Well, this is something quite between ourselves. Poor
George is in trouble.”

““ Any worse trouble than most bridegrooms? ”’

*“‘ I wish you would not speak like that,’’ said Hamilton
Beamish, pained. ‘‘ You seem to mock at Love.”

‘‘Oh, I’ve nothing against Love.’

“Thank you, thank you!”

‘‘ Don’t mention it.”’

‘* Love is the only thing worth while in the world. In
peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed, in war he mounts
the warrior’s steed... .”

‘Yes, doesn’t he. You were going to tell me what
George is in trouble about.”

Hamilton Beamish lowered his voice.

‘‘ Well, the fact is, on the eve of his wedding an old
acquaintance of his has suddenly appeared.”

‘‘ Female? ”’

‘* Female.”’

‘‘T begin to see.”

‘‘ George wrote her letters. She still has them.”

‘Worse and worse.”

‘‘And if she makes trouble it will stop the wedding.
Mrs. Waddington is only waiting for an excuse to forbid it.
Already, she has stated in so many words that she is
suspicious of George’s morals.’’

‘‘How absurd! George is like the driven snow.”’

‘“‘Exactly. A thoroughly fine-minded man. Why, I
remember him once leaving the table at a bachelor dinner
because some one told an improper story.”’

“‘ How splendid of him! What was the story ? ”’

‘‘T don’t remember. Still, Mrs. Waddington has this
opinion of him, so there it is.” 6

140 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘* All this sounds very interesting. What are you going
to do about it?”’

‘* Well, George has gone to the station to try to intercept
this Miss Stubbs and reason with her.”’

‘* Miss Stubbs ? ”’

*‘ That is her name. By the way, she comes from your
home-town, East Gilead. Perhaps you know her? ”’

“I seem to recollect the name. So George has gone‘ to
reason with her? ’”’

‘“Yes. But, of course, she will insist on coming here.”

‘* That’s bad.”’

Hamilton Beamish smiled.

‘“‘Not quite so bad as you think,” he said. ‘“‘ You see,
I have been giving the matter some little thought, and I
may say I have the situation wellinhand. I have arranged
everything.”’

‘*'You have ?”’

‘‘ Everything.”’

‘*' You must be terribly clever.”

‘‘Oh, well! ’’ said Hamilton Beamish modestly.

‘“‘ But, of course, I knew you were, the moment I read
your Booklets. Have you a cigarette? ”’

“I beg your pardon.”’

Madame Eulalie selected a cigarette from his case and
lit it. Hamilton Beamish, taking the match from her
fingers, blew it out and placed it reverently in his left top
waistcoat-pocket.

‘‘Go on,”’ said Madame Eulalie,

“* Ah, yes,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, coming out of his
thoughts. ‘“‘ We were speaking about George. It appears
that George, before he left East Gilead, had what he calls
an understanding, but which seems to me to have differed
in no respect from a definite engagement, with a girl
named May Stubbs. Unpleasant name!”

“Horrible. Just the sort of name I would want to
change.”’

‘“ He then came into money, left for New York, and forgot
all, about her.’’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 141

** But she didn’t forget all about him ? ”’

“Apparently not. I picture her as a poor, dowdy
little thing—you know what these village girls are—with-
out any likelihood of getting another husband. So she
has clung to her one chance. I suppose she thinks that
by coming here at this time she will force George to marry
her.”’

“But you are going to be too clever to let anything
like that happen ? ”’

“* Precisely.”

“* Aren’t you wonderful ! ”’

“It is extremely kind of you to say so,’’ said Hamilton
Beamish, pulling down his waistcoat.

““What have you arranged ?”’

** Well, the whole difficulty is that at present George is
in the position of having broken the engagement. So,
when this May Stubbs arrives, I am going to get her to
throw him over of her own free-will.”’

“‘ And how do you propose to do that ? ”

““Quite simply. You see, we may take it for granted
that she is a prude. I have, therefore, constructed a little
drama, by means of which George will appear an abandoned
libertine.”’

“* George |”

‘‘She will be shocked and revolted and will at once
break off all relations with him.”

“TI see. Did you think all this out by yourself? ”’

“Entirely by myself.”’

** You’re too clever for one man. You ought to incor-
porate.”’

It seemed to Hamilton Beamish that the moment had
arrived to speak out frankly and without subterfuge, to
reveal in the neatest phrases at his disposal the love which
had been swelling in his heart like some yeasty ferment
ever since he had first taken a speck of dust out of this
girl’s eye on the doorstep of Number Sixteen East Seventy-
Ninth Street. And he was about to begin doing so, when
she looked past him and uttered a pleased laugh. ,

10

142 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘Why, Georgie Finch ! ’’

Hamilton Beamish turned, justly exasperated. Every
time he endeavoured to speak his love, it seemed that
something had to happen to prevent him. Yesterday it
had been the loathsome Charley on the telephone, and
now it was George Finch. George was standing in the
doorway, flushed as if he had been walking quickly. He
was staring at the girl in a manner which Hamilton
Beamish resented. To express his resentment he coughed
sharply.

George paid no attention. He continued to stare.

‘‘ And how is Georgie? You have interrupted a most
interesting story, George.”

‘‘May!’’ George Finch placed a finger inside his collar,
as if trying to loosen it. ‘‘ May! I—I’ve just been down
to the station to meet you.”

“*T came by car.’’

*‘May ?”’ exclaimed Hamilton Beamish, a horrid light
breaking upon him.

Madame Eulalie turned to him brightly.

‘Yes, I’m the dowdy little thing.”’

“But you're not a dowdy little thing,’’ said Hamilton
Beamish, finding thought difficult but concentrating on
the one uncontrovertible fact.

“I was when George knew me.”

‘‘And your name is Madame Eulalie.”

“* My professional name. Didn’t we agree that anyone
who had a name like May Stubbs would want to change
it as quickly as possible.’

“You are really May Stubbs? ”’

“*T am.”

Hamilton Beamish bit his lip. He regarded his friend
coldly.

“TI congratulate you, George. You are engaged to two
of the prettiest girls I have ever seen.”

““ How very charming of you, Jimmy!”’ said Madame
Eulalie.

George Finch’s face worked convulsively.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 148

“But, May, honestly...: Haveaheart!... You
don’t really look on me as engaged to you?”

“Why not?”

“But... but... I thought you had forgotten all
about me,”

“What, after all those beautiful letters you wrote!”

“‘ Boy and gir! affair,’’ babbled George.

‘Was it, indeed!”

‘But, May!...”

Hamilton Beamish had been listening to these exchanges
with a rapidly rising temperature. His heart was pound-
ing feverishly in his bosom. There is no one who becomes
so primitive, when gripped by love, as the man who all
his life has dwelt in the cool empyrean of the intellect.
For twenty years and more, Hamilton Beamish had sup-
posed that he was above the crude passions of the ordinary
man,and when love had got him it got him good. And now,
standing there and listening to these two, he was conscious
of a jealousy so keen that he could no longer keep silent.
Hamilton Beamish, the thinker, had ceased to be: and
there stood in his place Hamilton Beamish, the descendant
of ancestors who had conducted their love affairs with
stout clubs and who, on seeing a rival, wasted no time in
calm reflection but jumped on him like a ton of bricks and
did their best to bite his head off. If you had given him a
bearskin and taken away his spectacles, Hamilton Beamish
at this moment would have been Prehistoric Man.

“‘ Hey !’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

‘** But, May, you know you don’t love me... .”

*‘Hey!’’ said Hamilton Beamish again in a nasty,
snarling voice. And silence fell.

The cave-man adjusted his spectacles, and glared at
his erstwhile friend with venomous dislike. His fingers
twitched, as if searching for a club.

‘‘ Listen to me, you,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, “‘ and get
meright! See? That’ll be about all from you about this
girl loving you, unless you want me to step across and bust
you on the beezer. I love her, see? And she’s goin to

144 THE SMALL BACHELOR

marry me, see’? And nobody else, see? And anyone who
says different had better notify his friends where he wants
his body sent, see? Love you, indeed? A swell chance!
I’m the little guy she’s going to marry, see? Me!”

And, folding his arms, the thinker paused for a reply.

It did not come immediately. George Finch, unused to
primitive emotions from this particular quarter, remained
completely dumb. It was left for Madame Eulalie to
supply comment.

** Jimmy |”’ she said faintly.

Hamilton Beamish caught her masterfully about the
waist. He kissed her eleven times.

‘So that’s that!’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

“Yes, Jimmy.”

‘** We'll get married to-morrow.”

** Yes, Jimmy.”

**' You are my mate!”

‘Yes, Jimmy.”

‘*‘ All right, then,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

George came to life like a clockwork toy.

‘‘ Hamilton, I congratulate you!”

** Thanks, thanks.’

Mr. Beamish spoke a little dazedly. He blinked.
Already the ferment had begun to subside, and Beamish
the cave-man was fast giving place to Beamish of the Book-
lets. He was dimly conscious of having expressed himself
a little too warmly and in language which in a calmer
moment he would never have selected. Then he caught
the girl’s eyes, fixed on him adoringly, and he had no
regrets.

“* Thanks,’ he said again.

““ May is a splendid girl,’’ said George. ‘‘ You will be
very happy. I speak as one who knows her. How
sympathetic you always were in the old days, May.”’

“Was I?”

*“ You certainly were. Don’t you remember how I used
to bring my troubles to you, and we would sit together on
the sofa in front of your parlour fire ?”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 145

*““We were always afraid some one was listening at the
door.”’

“If they had been, the only thing they’d have found out
would have been the lamp.”’

“Hey!” said Hamilton Beamish abruptly.

“‘ Those were happy days,’’ said Madame Eulalie.

*‘ And do you remember how your little brother used to
call me April Showers ? ”’

“* He did, did he ? ’’ said Mr. Beamish, snorting a little.
6¢ Why ? a?

““ Because I brought May flowers.”

“That’s quite enough,’’ said Hamilton Beamish, not
without reason. ‘‘I should like to remind you, Finch,
that this lady is engaged to me.”

“* Oh, quite,’”’ said George.

“Endeavour not to forget it,’’ said Hamilton Beamish
curtly. ‘* And, later on, should you ever come to share
a meal at our little home, be sparing of your reminiscences
of the dear old days. You get—you take my meaning?”

“Oh, quite,.”’

“Then we will be getting along. May has to return
to New York immediately, and I am going with her. You
must look elsewhere for a best man at your wedding.
You are very lucky to be having a wedding at all. Goud-
bye, George. Come, darling.”

The two-seater was moving down the drive, when
Hamilton Beamish clapped a hand to his forehead.

“‘T had quite forgotten,”’ he exclaimed.

‘‘What have you forgotten, Jimmy dear?”

** Just something I wanted to say to George, sweetheart.
Wait here for me.”’

‘‘ George,” said Hamilton Beamish, returning to the
hall, ‘‘I have just remembered something. Ring for
Ferris and tell him to stay in the room with the wedding-
presents and not leave it for a moment. They aren't
" safe, lying loose like that. You should have had a detec-
tive.”’

146 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“We intended to, but Mr. Waddington insisted on it
so strongly that Mrs. Waddington said the idea was absurd.
I'll go and tell Ferris immediately.”

**Do so,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

He passed out on to the lawn: and reaching the rho-
dodendron bushes, whistled softly.

‘‘Now what?’ said Fanny, pushing out an inquiring
head.

‘‘Oh, there you are.”’

‘Yes, here I am. When does the show start ? ”’

**It doesn’t,”’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘ Events have
occurred which render our little ruse unnecessary. So you
can return to your home and husband as soon as you
please.”’

“Oh?” said Fanny.

She plucked a rhododendron leaf and crushed it reflec-
tively.

‘‘T don’t know as I’m in any hurry,” she said. “I
kind of like it out here. The air and the sun and the birds
and everything. I guess I'll stick around for awhile.”

Hamilton Beamish regarded her with a quiet smile.

‘Certainly, if you wish it,” he said. ‘‘I should men-
tion, however, that if you were contemplating another
attempt on those jewels, you would do well to abandon the
idea. From now on a large butler will be stationed in the
room, watching over it, and there might be unpleasantness.”’

“Oh ?’’ said Fanny meditatively.

«6 Yes.”’

“You think of everything, don’t you?”

“‘I thank you for the compliment,’’ said Hamilton
Beamish,

CHAPTER ELEVEN
(G3 did not delay. Always sound, Hamilton

Beamish’s advice appeared to him now even
sounder than usual. He rang the bell for Ferris.

“‘ Oh, Ferris,’’ said George, ‘‘ Mr. Beamish thinks you
had better stay in the room with the wedding-presents
and keep an eye on them.”

“Very good, sir.”

*‘In case somebody tries to steal them, you know.”

** Just so, sir.”’

Relief, as it always does, had given George a craving
for conversation. He wanted to buttonhole some fellow-
creature and babble. He would have preferred this fellow-
creature to have been anyone but Ferris, for he had not
forgotten the early passages of their acquaintanceship
and seemed still to sense in the butler’s manner a lingering
antipathy. But Ferris was there, so he babbled to him.

‘‘Nice day, Ferris.”

‘* Yes, sir.”’

‘‘ Nice weather.”’

‘Yes, sir.”’

‘‘ Nice country round here.”

**No, sir.”

George was somewhat taken aback.

** Did you say, No, sir? ”’

‘* Yes, sir.”’

‘*‘Oh, Yes, sir? I thought you said No, sir.”

‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’’

‘* You mean you don’t like the country round here P

‘*No, sir.’’

‘*Why not?”

‘**I disapprove of it, sir.’*

eé Why ? LF

147

148 THE SMALL BACHELOR

** It is not the sort of country to which I have been accus-
tomed, sir. It is not like the country round Little-Seeping-
in-the-Wold.”’

** Where’s that ? ”’

**In England, sir.”

‘*T suppose the English country’s nice? ”’

** IT believe it gives uniform satisfaction, sir.’”’

George felt damped. In his mood of relief he had hoped
that Ferris might have brought himself to sink the butler
in the friend.

** What don’t you like about the country round here ? ”*

‘*J disapprove of the mosquitoes, sir.”

‘‘But there are only a few.”

**I disapprove of even one mosquito, sir.”’

George tried again.

‘* I suppose everybody downstairs is very excited about
the wedding, Ferris? ”’

‘* By ‘everybody downstairs’ you allude to. . ?”’

‘* The—er—the domestic staff.’’

‘‘T have not canvassed their opinions, sir. I mix very
little with my colleagues.”

‘‘I suppose you disapprove of them?”’ said George,
nettled.

** Yes, sir.’’

“Why?”

The butler raised his eyebrows. He preferred the lower
middle classes not to be inquisitive. However, he stooped
to explain.

‘* Many of them are Swedes, sir, and the rest are Irish.”

‘* You disapprove of Swedes ? ”’

** Yes, sir.’’

“Why?”

‘* Their heads are too square, sir.”

‘* And you disapprove of the Irish ? ”

** Yes, sir.”’

6¢ Why ? ad

** Because they are Irish, sir.”’

George shifted his feet uncomfortably.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 149

“‘I hope you don’t disapprove of weddings, Ferris? ”

** Yes, sir.”’

e¢ Why ? a)

“‘ They seem to me melancholy occasions, sir.”

“Are you married, Ferris? ”’

‘* A widower, sir.”’

“Well, weren’t you happy when you got married ? ”

‘No, sir.”

“Was Mrs. Ferris? ”’

*“* She appeared to take a certain girlish pleasure in the
ceremony, sir, but it soon blew over.”’

** How do you account for that ? ”

**I could not say, sir.”’

“* I’m sorry weddings depress you, Ferris. Surely when
two people love each other and mean to go on loving each
other...”

‘‘ Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of
love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.”

‘But, Ferris, if there were no marriages, what would
become of posterity ? ”’

‘*T see no necessity for posterity, sir.”

** You disapprove of it ? ”’

** Yes, sir.’

George walked pensively out on to the drive in front
of the house. He was conscious of a diminution of the
exuberant happiness which had led him to engage the
butler in conversation. He saw clearly now that, Ferris’s
conversation being what it was, a bridegroom who engaged
him in it on his wedding-day was making a blunder. A
suitable, even an ideal, companion for a funeral, Ferris
seemed out of harmony when the joy-bells were ringing.

He looked out upon the pleasant garden with sobered
gaze: and, looking, was aware of Sigsbee H. Waddington
approaching. Sigsbee’s manner was agitated. He con-
veyed the impression of having heard bad news or of having
made some discovery which disconcerted him.

“ Say, listen! ’’ said Sigsbee H. ‘‘ What’s that infernal
butler doing in the room with the wedding presentsee ”’

150 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘Keeping guard over them.”

“Who told him to?”

ee I did.’’

* Hell’s bells !’’ said Sigsbee H.

He gave George a peculiar look and shimmered off.
If George had been more in the frame of mind to analyse
the looks of his future father-in-law, he might have seen
in this one a sort of shuddering loathing. But he was
not in the frame of mind. Besides, Sigsbee H. Waddington
was not the kind of man whose looks one analysed. He
was one of those negligible men whom one pushes out of
sight and forgets about. George proceeded to forget
about him almost immediately. He was still forgetting
about him, when an automobile appeared round the bend
of the drive and, stopping beside him, discharged Mrs.
Waddington, Molly, and a man with a face like a horse,
whom, from his clerical costume, George took correctly
to be the deputy from Flushing.

** Molly !’’ cried George.

‘‘Here we are, angel,’’ said Molly.

‘‘And mother !’’ said George, with less heartiness.

‘‘Mother!’’ said Mrs. Waddington, with still less
heartiness than George.

‘‘This is the Reverend Gideon Voules,”’ said Molly,
‘‘He’s going to marry us.”

‘‘ This,’ said Mrs. Waddington, turning to the clergy-
man and speaking in a voice which seemed to George’s
sensitive ear to contain too strong a note of apology, “‘ is
the bridegroom.”’

The Reverend Gideon Voules looked at George with a
dull and poached-egg-like eye. He did not seem to the
latter to be a frightfully cheery sort of person: but, after
all, when you’re married, you’re married, no matter how
like a poached egg the presiding minister may loox.

“* How do you do ? ”’ said the Rev. Gideon.

‘“‘T’m fine,’’ said George. ‘‘ How are you?”

**T am in robust health, I thank you.”

“Splendid! Nothing wrong with the ankles, eh?”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 151

The Rev. Gideon glanced down at them and seemed
satisfied with this section of his lower limbs, even though
they were draped in white socks.

*‘ Nothing, thank you.”

“‘So many clergymen nowadays,” explained George,
“are falling off chairs and spraining them.”

“I never fall off chairs.”’

“Then you're just the fellow I’ve been scouring the
country for,’’ said George. ‘If all clergymen were like
you...”

Mrs. Waddington came to life.

“Would you care for a glass of milk ? ”

‘*‘No, thank you, mother,” said George.

“I was not addressing you,” said Mrs. Waddington.
“I was speaking to Mr. Voules. He has had a long drive
and no doubt requires refreshment.”

“Of course, of course,” said George. ‘‘ What am I
thinking about ? Yes, you must certainly stoke up and
preserve your strength. We don’t want you fainting half-
way through the ceremony.”

“He would have every excuse,” said Mrs. Waddington.

She led the way into the dining-room, where light refresh-
ments were laid out on a side-table—a side-table brightly
decorated by the presence of Sigsbee H. Waddington, who
was sipping a small gin and tonic and watching with lower-
ing gaze the massive imperturbability of Ferris, the butler.
Ferris, though he obviously disapproved of wedding-
presents, was keeping a loyal eye on them.

‘““What are you doing here, Ferris ? ’’ asked Mrs. Wad-
dington.

The butler raised the loyal eye.

*“‘ Guarding the gifts, madam.”

** Who told you to? ”

“Mr. Finch, madam.”

Mrs. Waddington shot a look of disgust at George.

“‘ There is no necessity whatever.”

“Very good, madam.”

: Only an imbecile would have suggested such a thjng.”

152 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“ Precisely, madam.”

The butler retired. Sigsbee Horatio, watching him go,
sighed unhappily. What was the good of him going now ?
felt Sigsbee. From now on the room would be full.
Already automobiles were beginning to arrive, and a swarm
of wedding-guests had begun to settle upon the refresh-
ments on the side-table.

The Rev. Gideon Voules, thoughtfully lowering a milk
and ham-sandwich into the abyss, had drawn George
into a corner and was endeavouring to make his better
acquaintance.

‘ T always like to have a little chat with the bridegroom
before the ceremony,” he said. ‘‘It is agreeable to be
able to feel that he is, in a sense, a personal friend.”

“Very nice of you,” said George, touched.

‘“‘I married a young fellow in Flushing named Miglett
the other day—Claude R. Miglett. Perhaps you recall
the name? ”

“No.”

“Ah! I thought you might have seen it in the papers.
They were full of the affair. I always feel that, if I had
not made a point of establishing personal relations with
him before the ceremony, I should not have been in a
position to comfort him as IJ did after the accident occurred.”’

“ Accident ? ”

“Yes. The bride was most unfortunately killed by a
motor-lorry as they were leaving the church.”

“Good heavens ! ”’

“‘T have always thought it singularly unfortunate. But
then it almost seems as if there were some fatality about the
weddings at which I officiate. Only a week before, I had
married a charming young couple, and both were dead
before the month was out. A girder fell on them as they
were passing a building which was under construction.
In the case of another pair whom I married earlier in
the year, the bridegroom contracted some form of low fever.
A very fine young fellow. He came out in pink spots.
Wea: were all most distressed about it.” He turned to

THE SMALL BACHELOR 188

Mrs. Waddington, whom an inrush of guests had driven
into the corner. ‘I was telling our young friend here of
a rather singular coincidence. In each of the last two
weddings at which I officiated the bridegroom died within
a few days of the ceremony.”

A wistful look came into Mrs. Waddington’s face. She
seemed to be feeling that luck like that could not hold.

“IT, personally,” she said, ‘have had a presentiment
right from the beginning that this marriage would never
take place.”

“Now, that is very curious,’ said the Rev. Gideon.
“‘I am a strong believer in presentiments.”

“So am I.”

“‘T think they are sent to warn us—to help us to prepare
ourselves for disaster.”

“‘In the present instance,” said Mrs. Waddington, “‘ the
word disaster is not the one I would have selected.”

George tottered away. Once more there was creeping
over him that grey foreboding which had come to him
earlier in the day. So reduced was his nervous system
that he actually sought comfort in the society of Sigsbee
Horatio. After all, he thought, whatever Sigsbee’s short-
comings as a man, he at least was a friend. A philosopher
with the future of the race at heart might sigh as he looked
upon Sigsbee H. Waddington, but in a bleak world George
could not pick and choose his chums.

A moment later there was forced upon him the unpleasing
discovery that in supposing that Mr. Waddington liked
him he had been altogether too optimistic. The look
which his future father-in-law bestowed upon him as he
sidled up was not one of affection. It was the sort of
look which, had he been Sheriff of Gory Gulch, Arizona,
the elder man might have bestowed upon a horse-thief.

‘“‘ Darned officious |’ rumbled Sigsbee H., in a querulous
undertone. ‘‘ Officious and meddling.”

“Eh?” said George.

“Telling that butler to come in here and watch the
presents.”’ .

184 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“ But, good heavens, don’t you realize that, if I hadn’t
told him, some one might have sneaked in and stolen some-
thing ? ”

Mr. Waddington’s expression was now that of a cow-
boy who, leaping into bed, discovers too late that a frolic-
some friend has placed a cactus between the sheets: and
George, at the lowest ebb, was about to pass on to the
refreshment-table and see if a little potato-salad might
not act as a restorative, when there stepped from the
crowd gathered round the food a large and ornately dressed
person chewing the remains of a slab of caviare on toast.
George had a dim recollection of having seen him among the
guests at that first dinner-party at Number Sixteen East
Seventy-Ninth Street. His memory had not erred. The
new-comer was no less a man than United Beef.

“‘ Hello there, Waddington,” said United Beef.

“ Ur,’’ said Sigsbee Horatio. He did not like the other,
who had once refused to lend him money and—what was
more—had gone to the mean length of quoting Shakespeare
to support his refusal.

“Say, Waddington,” proceeded United Beef, ‘‘ don’t I
seem to remember you coming to me sometime ago and
asking about that motion-picture company, the Finer and
Better? You were thinking of putting some money in,
if I recollect.”

An expression of acute alarm shot into Mr. Waddington’s
face. He gulped painfully.

‘“‘Not me,” he said hastily. ‘Not me. Get it out of
your nut that it was I who wanted to buy the stuff. I
just thought that if the stock was any good my dear wife
might be interested.”

“‘Same thing.”

“It is not at all the same thing.”

“Do you happen to know if your wife bought any ? ”

“No, she didn’t. I heard later that the company was
no good, so I did not mention it to her.”

“Too bad,” said United Beef. ‘‘ Too bad.”

“What do you mean, too bad?”

_ THE SMALL BACHELOR 155

“‘ Well, a rather remarkable thing has happened. Quite
@ romance in its way. As a motion-picture company
the thing was, as you say, no good. Couldn’t seem to do
anything right. But yesterday, when a workman started
to dig a hole on the lot to put up a ‘ For Sale’ sign, I’m
darned if he didn’t strike oil.”’

The solid outlines of United Beef shimmered uncertainly
before Mr. Waddington’s horrified eyes.

“Oil?” he gurgled.

“Yes, sir. Oil. What looks like turning out the biggest
gusher in the south-west.’’

‘‘ But—but—do you mean to say, then, that the shares
are—are really worth something ? ”

‘“‘ Only millions, that’s all. Merely millions. It’s a pity
you didn’t buy some. This caviare,’’ said United Beef,
champing meditatively, “‘is good. That’s what it is, Wad-
dington—good. I think I'll have another slice”

It is difficult to arrest the progress of a millionaire who
is starting off in the direction of caviare, but Mr. Wadding-
ton, with a frenzied clutch at the other’s coat-sleeve,
succeeded in doing so for a brief instant.

“When did you hear this ? ”

*“* Just as I was starting out this morning.”

*‘Do you think anybody else knows about it ? ”

‘“* Everybody down-town, I should say.”

“But, listen,’’ said Mr. Waddington urgently. “ Say,
listen !’’ He clung to the caviare-maddened man’s sleeve
with a desperate grip. ‘“‘ What I am getting at is, I know
a guy—nothing to do with business—who has a block of
that stock. Do you think there’s any chance of him not
having heard about this? ”

“Quite likely. But, if you’re thinking of getting it off
him, you’d better hurry. The story is probably in the
evening papers by now.”

The words acted on Sigsbee H. Waddington like an elec-
tric shock. He released the other’s sleeve, and United
Beef shot off towards the refreshment-table like a homing
pigeon, Mr. Waddington felt in his hip-pocket to make sure

156 THE SMALL BACHELOR

that he still possessed the three hundred dollars which
he had hoped that day to hand over to Fanny Welch,
and bounded out of the room, out of the house, and out
of the front gate; and, after bounding along the broad
highway to the station, leaped into a train which might
have been meeting him there by appointment. Never
in his life before had Sigsbee H. Waddington caught a
train so expeditiously: and the fact seemed to him a
happy omen. He looked forward with a cheery con-
fidence to the interview with that policeman fellow to
whom he had—in a moment of mistaken generosity—parted
with his precious stock. The policeman had seemed a
simple sort of soul, just the sort of man with whom it is
so nice to do business. Mr. Waddington began to rehearse
the opening speeches of the interview.

“* Say, listen,’’ he would say. ‘‘ Say, listen, my dear...”

He sat up in his seat with a jerk. He had completely
forgotten the policeman’s name.

CHAPTER TWELVE

EVERAL hours later, when the stars had begun to
peep out and the birds were rustling sleepily in the
trees, a solitary figure might have been observed

moving slowly up the drive towards the front door of the
Waddington summer-residence at Hempstead, Long Island.
It was Sigsbee H., returning from his travels.

He walked apprehensively, like a cat that expects a half-
brick. Oh, sings the poet, to be home again, home again,
home again: but Sigsbee H. Waddington could not bring
himself to share that sunny view-point. With the oppor-
tunity for quiet reflection there had come to him the
numbing realization that beneath the roof before him
trouble waited. On other occasions while serving his
second sentence as a married man he had done things of
which his wife had disapproved—and of which she had
expressed her disapproval in a manner that was frank
and unrestrained: but never before had he committed
such a domestic crime as the one beneath the burden of
which he was staggering now. He had actually absented
himself from the wedding of his only child after having
been specifically instructed to give her away at the altar:
and if on a theme like this his wife did not extend herself
in a fashion calculated to stagger Humanity—well, all
Sigsbee H. could say was that past form meant nothing
and could be ruled out as a guide completely.

He sighed drearily. He felt depressed and battered,
in no mood to listen to home-truths about himself. All
he wanted was to be alone on a sofa with his shoes off
and something to drink at his elbow. For he had had a
trying time in the great city.

Sigsbee H. Waddington, as has perhaps been sufficiently
indicated in this narrative, was not a man who coeuld

II 157

158 THE SMALL BACHELOR

think deeply without getting a headache: but even at
the expense of an aching head he had been compelled to
do some very deep thinking as he journeyed to New York
in the train. From somewhere in the muddy depths of his
sub-consciousness it was imperative that he should bring
to the surface the name of the policeman to whom he
had sold that stock. He started the dredging operations
immediately, and by the time the train had reached the
Pennsylvania Station had succeeded in narrowing the
search down to this extent—that he felt sure the man was
called either Mulcahy or Garrity.

Now, a man who goes about New York looking for a
policeman named Mulcahy has quite an afternoon’s work
in hand. So has the man who seeks a Garrity. For one
who pursues both there is not a dull moment. Flitting
hither and thither about the city and questioning the
various officers he encountered, Sigsbee H. Waddington soon
began to cover ground. The policeman on point duty
in Times Square said that there was a Mulcahy up near
Grant’s Tomb and a choice of Garritys at Columbus Circle
and Irving Place. The Grant’s Tomb Mulcahy, express-
ing regret chat he could not himself supply the happy
ending, recommended the Hundred-and-Twenty-Fifth
Street Mulcahy or—alternately—the one down on Third
Avenue and Sixteenth. The Garrity at Columbus Circle
spoke highly of a Garrity near the Battery, and the Gar-
rity at Irving Place seemed to think his cousin up in the
Bronx might fill the long-felt want. By the time the
clocks were striking five, Mr. Waddington had come
definitely to the decision that what the world wanted to
make it a place fit for heroes to live in was fewer and better
Mulcahys. At five-thirty, returning from the Bronx, he
would have supported any amendment to the Constitution
which Congress might have cared to introduce, totally pro-
hibiting Garritys. At six sharp, he became suddenly con-
vinced that the name of the man he sought was Murphy.

He was passing through Madison Square at the moment,
hawing just flushed Fourteenth Street for another Mul-

THE SMALL BACHELOR 159

cahy: and so deeply did this new idea affect him that he
tottered to one of the benches and, sitting down, groaned
heavily. It was the breaking-point. Mr. Waddington
decided to give it up and go home. His head was aching,
his feet were aching, and the small of his back was aching.
The first fine careless rapture with which he had started
his quest had ebbed away to nothing. In short, if there
was one man in New York utterly incapable of going about
the place looking for Murphys, that man was Sigsbee H.
Waddington. He limped to the Pennsylvania Station and
took the next train home, and here he was, approaching
journey’s end,

The house, as he drew near, seemed very silent. And,
of course, it had every right tobe. Long since, the wedding
must have taken place and the happy pair departed on
their honeymoon. Long since, the last guest must have
left. And now, beneath that quiet roof, there remained
only Mrs. Waddington, no doubt trying out blistering
phrases in the seclusion of her boudoir—here, discarding
an incandescent adjective in favour of a still zippier one
that had just suggested itself; there, realizing that the
noun ‘worm’ was too mild and searching in Roget’s
Thesaurus for something more expressive. Mr. Wadding-
ton paused on the door-step, half inclined to make for the
solitude of the tool-shed.

Manlier counsels prevailed. In the tool-shed there
would be nothing to drink, and, cost what it might, a drink
was what his suffering soul demanded. He crossed the
threshold, and leaped nimbly as a dark figure suddenly
emerged from the telephone-booth.

‘*Oosh |’ said Mr. Waddington.

“Sir? ”’ said the figure.

Mr. Waddington felt relieved. It was not his wife. It
was Ferris. And Ferris was the one person he particu-
larly wanted at that moment to meet. For it was Ferris
who could most expeditiously bring him something to
drink. °

160 THE SMALL BACHELOR

**Sh!’’ whispered Sigsbee H. ‘‘ Anyone about?”

ee Sir ? a”

‘‘ Where is Mrs. Waddington ? ”’

**In her boudoir, sir.’’

Sigsbee H. had expected as much.

‘“* Anyone in the library? ”’

*‘ No, sir.”

‘‘Then bring me a drink in there, Ferris, And don’t
tell anybody you've seen me.”

“Very good, sir.”’

Mr. Waddington shambled to the library and flung
himself down on the chesterfield. Delicious, restful
moments passed, and then a musical tinkling made itself
heard without. Ferris entered with a tray.

‘*You omitted to give me definite instructions, sir,’
said the butler, ‘“‘so, acting on my own initiative, I have
brought the whisky-decanter and some charged water.”’

He spoke coldly, for he disapproved of Mr. Waddington.
But the latter was in no frame of mind to analyse the verbal
nuances of butlers. He clutched at the decanter, his eyes
moist with gratitude.

** Splendid fellow, Ferris !’’

“Thank you, sir.”’

“You're the sort of fellow who ought to be out West,
where men are men.”

The butler twitched a frosty eyebrow.

“‘ Will that be all, sir? ”’

“Yes. But don’t go, Ferris. Tell me about every-
thing.”’

‘‘On what particular point did you desire information,
sir ? a:

“‘Tell me about the wedding. I wasn’t able to be
present. I had most important business in New York,
Ferris. So I wasn’t able to be present. Because I had
most important business in New York.”

“* Indeed, sir? ”’

“Most important business. Impossible to neglect it.
Did.the wedding go off all right? ”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 161

*‘ Not altogether, sir.’’

‘‘ What do you mean?”

‘‘There has been no wedding, sir.”’

Mr. Waddington sat up. The butler appeared to be
babbling. And the one moment when a man does not
want to mix with babbling butlers is immediately after
he has returned home from a search through New York
for a policeman named Mulcahy or Garrity.

‘‘No wedding ? ”’

‘No, sir.”

‘Why not?”

‘‘ At the last moment a hitch occurred, sir.”

*‘Don’t tell me the new clergyman sprained his ankle,
too? ”’

‘‘No, sir. The presiding minister continues to enjoy
good health in every respect. The hitch to which I allude
was caused by a young woman who, claiming to be an
old friend of the bridegroom, entered the room where the
guests were assembled and created some little disturbance,
sir,”’

Mr. Waddington’s eyes bulged.

‘* Tell me about this,’’ he said.

The butler fixed a fathomless gaze on the wall beyond
him,

‘“‘E was not actually present at the scene myself, sir.
But one of the lower servants, who chanced to be glancing
in at the door, has apprised me of the details of the occur-
rence. It appears that, just as the wedding-party was
about to start off for the church, a young woman suddenly
made her way through the French windows opening on
to the lawn, and, pausing in the entrance, observed
‘George! George! Why did you desert me? You
don’t belong to that girl there. You belong to me,—the
woman you have wronged!’ Addressing Mr. Finch, I
gather.”’

Mr. Waddington’s eyes were now protruding to such a
dangerous extent that a sharp jerk would have caused them
to drop off. °

162 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘* Sweet suffering soup-spoons! What happened then ?”’

“There was considerable uproar and confusion, so my
informant tells me. The bridegroom was noticeably taken
aback, and protested with some urgency that it was all a
mistake. To which Mrs. Waddington replied that it was
just what she had foreseen all along. Miss Waddington, I
gather, was visibly affected. And the guests experienced
no little embarrassment.”

‘IT don’t blame them.”

** No, sir.”

‘And then?”

“* The young woman was pressed for details, but appeared
to be in an overwrought and highly emotional condition.
She screamed, so my informant tells me, and wrung her
hands, She staggered about the room and, collapsing
on the table where the wedding-presents had been placed,
seemed to swoon. Almost immediately afterwards, how-
ever, she appeared to recover herself: and, remarking
‘Air! Air! I want air!’ departed hastily through the
French windows. I understand, sir, that nothing was
seen of her after that.”

‘‘ And what happened then ? ”’

““Mrs. Waddington refused to permit the wedding to
take place. The guests returned to New York. Mr.
Finch, after uttering certain protests which my informant
could not hear distinctly but which appear to have been
incoherent and unconvincing, also took his departure.
Mrs. Waddington has for some little time past been closeted
in the boudoir with Miss Waddington. <A very unpleasant
affair, sir, and one which could never have occurred at
Brangmarley Hall.”

One hates to have to record it, but it is a fact that the
first emotion which came to Sigsbee H. Waddington after
the waning of his initial amazement was relief. It was
not the thought of this broken romance that occupied his
mind, nor pity for the poor girl who had played the prin-
cipal part in the tragedy. The aspect of the matter that
touched him most nearly was the fact that he was not in

THE SMALL BACHELOR 168

for trouble after all. His absence had probably escaped
notice, and that wifely lecture to which he had been looking
forward so apprehensively would never be delivered.

And then, cutting through relief, came a sudden thought
that chilled his satisfaction.

‘“What sort of a girl was it that came in through the
window ? ”

‘‘ My informant describes her as small, sir, and of a neat
figure. She had a retroussé nose and expressive black eyes,
sir,”

‘‘Great Godfrey!” ejaculated Mr. Waddington.

He sprang from the sofa and, despite his aching feet,
made good time along the hall. He ran into the dining-
room and switched on the light. He darted across the
room to the table where the wedding-presents lay. At
first glance, they seemed to be all there, but a second look
showed him that his suspicions had been well founded,

The case containing the necklace was gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NE of the most sustaining gifts a man can possess
is the ability to look upon the bright side of
disaster. It was a gift which, until now, Sigsbee

H. Waddington had lacked almost entirely: but at this
moment, owing perhaps to the fact that he had just intro-
duced into his interior a healing drink of quite exceptional
strength, he suddenly found himself discerning with a
limpid clearness the fact that the elimination of that near-
pearl necklace from the scheme of things was, from his
point of view, the very best thing that could have happened.

It had not been his intention to allow his young assis-
tant to secure the necklace and convert it to her own uses :
but, now that this had happened, what, he asked himself,
had he to worry about? The main thing was that the
necklace had disappeared. Coming right down to it, that
was the consummation at which he had aimed all along.

What it amounted to was that, when all the tumult
and the shouting had died, he was three hundred dollars
in hand and consequently in a position, if he ever met that
policeman again and the policeman had not happened to
hear the news which United Beef had told him, to...

At this point in his meditations Mr. Waddington sud-
denly broke off and uttered a sharp exclamation. For
before his eyes in letters of fire there seemed to be written
the one word

GALLAGHER

Sigsbee H. Waddington reeled in his tracks. Gallagher |
That was the name. Not Mulcahy. Not Garrity. Not
Murphy. Gallagher |

Like many another good man before him, Sigsbee Wad-
dington chafed at the fat-headed imbecility with which

164

THE SMALL BACHELOR 165

Memory can behave. Why should Memory have presented
to his notice futile Mulcahys and Garritys and Murphys
when what he had been asking for was Gallagher? Wast-
ing his time |

But it was not too late. If he went straight back to
New York now and resumed his quest, all might yet be
well. And Fortune had, he perceived, presented him
with the most admirable excuse for going straight back
to New York. In a crisis like this, with a valuable pear]
necklace stolen, it was imperative that a cool-headed, clear-
thinking man of the world should take the next train
up and place the facts in the possession of Police Head-
quarters.

“Good enough !”’ said Mr. Waddington to his immortal
soul: and hobbled stiffly but light-heartedly to the boudoir.

Voices reached his ears as he opened the door. They
ceased as he entered, and Mrs, Waddington looked up
peevishly.

‘Where have you been, I should like to know? ”’ she
said.

Sigsbee H. was ready for this one.

‘“‘ T took a long country walk. Avery long country walk.
I was so shocked, horrified and surprised by that dreadful
scene that the house seemed to stifle me. So I took a long
country walk. I have just got back. What a very dis-
turbing thing to happen! Ferris says it could never have
occurred at Brangmarley Hall,”’

Molly, somewhat red about the eyes and distinctly
mutinous about the mouth, spoke for the first time.

‘‘I’m sure there is some explanation.”’

‘‘Tchah!’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

“IT know there is.’

‘‘Then why did not your precious Finch condescend to
give it?”

‘He was so taken aback.”

**I don’t wonder.”’

‘I’m sure there was some mistake.”

166 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘There was,” said Mr. Waddington. He patted his
daughter’s hand soothingly. ‘‘ The whole thing was a put-
up job.”

“‘ Kindly talk sense, Sigsbee.’’

** IT am talking sense.”’

*“ What you call sense, perhaps, but not what anyone
outside the walls of an institution for the feeble-minded
would call sense.”

‘“‘TIs zat so? ’’ Mr. Waddington put his thumbs in the
armholes of his waistcoat and felt rather conquering.
‘Well, let me tell you that that girl simply pretended
to be what she wasn’t so as to fool you into thinking she
wasn’t what she was.”’

Mrs. Waddington sighed despairingly.

‘“Go away, Sigsbee,’’ she said.

‘* That’s all right about Go away, Sigsbee. I’m telling
you that that girl was a crook. She couldn't get in any
other way, so she pulled that discarded stuff. She was
after the wedding presents.”

‘‘Then why did she not take them ? ”’

“She did. She took Molly’s pearl necklace.”

** What | ”’

‘*'You heard. She took Molly’s pearl necklace.’

** Nonsense.”

‘Well, it’s gone.”

Molly had risen with shining eyes.

“I thought as much. So my dear darling George is
innocent after all.”

Very few people in this civilized world have ever seen
a baffled tigress, but anybody who could have watched
Mrs. Waddington’s face at this moment would have gained
a very fair knowledge of how baffled tigresses look.

“I don’t believe it,’’ she said sullenly.

“Well, the necklace has gone, hasn't it,’”’ said Sigsbee
H. ‘‘ And you don’t suppose any of the guests took it,
do you? Though I wouldn’t put it past that Lord Hun-
stanton guy. Of course that girl has got it. She fainted
on the wedding-present table, didn’t she? She said she

THE SMALL BACHELOR 167

wanted air and rushed out, didn’t she? And nobody’s
seen her since, have they? If it hadn’t been for going
for my long country walk, I’d have got on to this hours
a go.”

‘“‘T’m going straight to New York to see George and
tell him,”’ said Molly, breathing quickly.

“You will do nothing of the kind,’’ said Mrs. Waddington,
rising.

“And I’m going to New York to see the police,’’ said
Sigsbee.

‘“‘ You are certainly not! I will go to New York, and
I will inform the police You and Molly will stay here.’’

‘But listen...”

“‘IT want no further discussion.”” Mrs. Waddington
pressed the bell. ‘‘ As for you,” she said, turning to
Molly, ‘‘do you suppose I am going to allow you to pay
nocturnal visits to the apartments of libertines like George
Finch ? ”’

‘* He is not a libertine.”

“Certainly not,” said Sigsbee H. ‘A very fine young
fellow. Comes from Idaho.’’

‘You know perfectly well,’’ Molly went on, “‘ that what
father has told us absolutely clears George. Why, the girl
might just as well have come in and said that father had
deserted her.”’

‘‘Here!’’ said Mr. Waddington. “ Hil”’

‘‘She only wanted an excuse for getting into the
house.”

“It is possible,’’ said Mrs. Waddington, ‘‘ that in this
particular instance George Finch is not so blameworthy
as I had at first supposed. But that does not alter the
fact that he is a man whom any mother with her daugh-
ter’s happiness at heart must regard with the deepest sus-
picion. Heisan artist. He has deliberately chosen to live
in a quarter of New York which is notorious for its loose-
thinking and Bohemian ways. And...”

The door opened.

‘You rang, madam ? ”’

168 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘** Yes, Ferris. Tell Bassett to bring the car round imme-
diately. I am going into New York.”

“Very good, madam.” The butler coughed, “I
wonder, madam, if it is not taking a liberty, if I might
be permitted to ride on the box-seat beside the chauffeur ? ’’

6 Why ? a:

There are occasions in life when to give one’s true reasons
for some particular course of action would be tedious.
The actual explanation of the butler’s desire to visit the
metropolis was that he wished to pay a call upon the editor
of that bright and widely-read weekly paper, ‘ Town
Gossip,’ in order to turn an honest penny by informing
him of the sensational scene which had occurred that day
in the highest circles. Almost immediately after the facts
of this scandal in high life had been called to his attention,
Ferris had started to telephone the ‘ Town Gossip ’ offices
in order to establish communication, only to be informed
that the editor was out of town. At his last attempt,
however, a cautious assistant, convinced at length that
the butler had something of real interest up his sleeve
and was not disposed to reveal it to underlings, had recom-
mended him to call upon L. Lancelot Biffen, the editor-
in-chief, at his private address on the ninth floor of the
Sheridan Apartment House, near Washington Square.
Mr. Biffen, the assistant thought, would be back after
dinner.

All this the butler could, of course, have revealed to his
employer, but, like all men of intellect, he disliked long
explanations.

“I have just received a communication informing me
that a near relative of mine is ill in the city, madam.”

“Oh, very well.”’

“‘Thank you, madam. I will inform Bassett at once.”

“* Besides,’’ said Mrs. Waddington, as the door closed,
going on where she had been interrupted, “‘ for all we know,
the girl’s story may have been perfectly true, and her
theft of the pearls the result of a sudden temptation on
the‘spur of the moment.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 169

** Mother | ’’

“Well, why not ? I suppose she was in need of money.
No doubt your Finch callously omitted to provide for her
in any way.”

‘* You’ve got it all wrong,”’ said Sigsbee H.

** What do you know about it ? ’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

‘* Nothing,”’ said Sigsbee H., prudently.

‘* Then kindly refrain from talking nonsense.”

Mrs. Waddington left the room with ponderous dignity,
and Sigsbee H., still prudent, closed the door.

‘Say, listen, Molly,’’ he said, ‘“‘I’ve got to get up to
New York right away. I’ve just got to.”

‘‘SohaveI. Icertainly mean to see George to-night. I
suppose he has gone back to his apartment.”

‘* What’ll we do? ’”’

‘Directly the car has gone, I’ll run you up in my
two-seater.”’

‘*’At-a-baby!’’ said Mr. Waddington fervently.
‘* That’s the way to talk.”

He kissed his daughter fondly.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

§1I

RS. WADDINGTON found the authorities at
M. Police Headquarters charming. It was some
little time before they corrected their initial
impression that she had come to give herself up to justice
for committing a jewel-robbery: but, this done, they
threw themselves heart and soul into her cause and became
extraordinarily helpful. True, they were forced to admit
that the description which she gave of the thief conveyed
absolutely nothing to them: but if it had done, they
assured her, she would have been amazed at the remorse-
less speed with which the machinery of the law would

have been set working.

If, for instance, the girl had been tall and thin with
shingled auburn hair, they would have spread the net
at once for ‘Chicago Kitty.’ If, on the other hand, she
had had a snub nose and two moles on her chin, then
every precinct would have been warned by telephone to
keep an eye out for ‘ Cincinatti Sue.’ While, if only she
had limped slightly and spoken with a lisp, the arrest of
‘Indianapolis Edna’ would have been a mere matter of
hours. As it was, they were obliged to confess themselves
completely baffled : and Mrs. Waddington came away with
the feeling that, if she had not happened to possess large
private means, she could have gone into the jewel-stealing
business herself and cleaned up big without any fear of
unpleasant consequences. It was wrong of her, of course,
to call the chief detective a fat-faced goop, but by that
time she had become a little annoyed.

She was still annoyed as she came out into the street,
but the pleasant night air had a cooling effect. She was
ablé now to perceive that the theft of the necklace was,

170

THE SMALL BACHELOR 171

after all, only a side issue, and that there lay before her
sterner work than the mere bringing to book of female
criminals. The consummation to which she must devote
all her faculties was the downfall of George Finch.

It was at this point that she decided that she needed an
ally, a sympathetic coadjutor who would trot along by
her side and do what he was told and generally supply
aid and encouragement in the rather tricky operations on
which she was about to embark. She went to a public
telephone-office and invested five cents in a local call.

“Lord Hunstanton ? ”

ée Hullo ? a)

“‘ This is Mrs. Waddington.”

“Oh, ah? Many happy returns.”

‘‘ What are you doing just now? ”’

“IT was thinking of popping out and having a bit to eat.”

** Meet me at the Ritz-Carlton in ten minutes.”

‘“ Right-ho. Thanks awfully. I will. Yes. Thanks.
Right. Fine. Absolutely. Right-ho.”

So now we find Mrs. Waddington seated in the vestibule
of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, watching the door like a cat at
a mouse-hole and tapping the carpet impatiently with an
ample shoe. Like everybody else who has ever waited
five minutes for anybody in a restaurant, she had the illu-
sion of having been there for several hours. But at last
her patience was rewarded. An elegant figure shimmered
through the doorway and came towards her, beaming with
happy anticipation. Lord Hunstanton was a man who
combined a keen appetite with a rugged distaste for
paying for his own meals, and the prospect of a dinner
at the Ritz at somebody else’s expense enchanted him.
He did not actually lick his lips, but as he looked brightly
up the stairs to where benevolent waiters were plying
contented diners with food, there flitted across his face a
radiant smile.

_ “Hope I’m not late,” said Lord Hunstanton.

“Sit down,” said Mrs. Waddington. ‘I want to talk

to you.” And proceeded to do so at some length. »

172 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Lord Hunstanton blinked pathetically.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, as his companion paused
for breath. “I know it’s all frightfully interesting, but
I don’t seem somehow to follow. How would it be if we
slid into the dining-room and thrashed the whole thing
out quietly over a thoughtful steak or something ? ”

Mrs. Waddington eyed him with a distaste that bordered
on contempt.

“ You surely do not imagine that I propose to waste
time eating ?”’

“Eh?” His lordship’s jaw fell aninch. ‘ Not eat?”

“Certainly not. I will repeat what I was saying, and
please listen attentively this time.”

“But I say! No dinner? ”

Cf § No.”’

““No soup?”

6s No.”’

**No fish? No nourishment of any description ? ”

‘Certainly not. We have no time to lose. We must
act promptly and swiftly.”

‘‘ How about a sand— ...?”

‘You were present at that appalling scene this after-
noon,” said Mrs. Waddington, “so there is no need to
describe it to you. You will not have forgotten how that
gir] came into the room and denounced George Finch.
You recall] all she said.”

“‘I do indeed. It was the real ginger.”

“ But unfortunately untrue.”

66 Eh ? a3

“It was a ruse. She was a thief. She did it in order
to steal a pearl necklace belonging to my step-daughter,
which was among the wedding presents.”

“No, really? I say! Fancy that!”

“Unfortunately there seems to be no doubt of it. And
so, instead of being appalled at George Finch’s moral
turpitude, my step-daughter looks upon him as a much-
injured man and wishes the marriage to take place as
arranged. Are you listening ? ”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 178

Lord Hunstanton started. There had come frolicking
towards him from the dining-room a lively young smell
composed principally of tournedos and gravy, and his
attention had wandered.

“Sorry,” he said. ‘‘ Thinking of something else for the
moment. You were saying that Miss Waddington was
appalled at George Finch’s moral turpitude.”

“I was saying precisely the reverse. She is not
appalled.”

““No? Very broad-minded, these modern girls,’’ said
Lord Hunstanton, turning away and trying not to inhale.

“But,” proceeded Mrs. Waddington, ‘‘ I am convinced
that, although in this particular matter this Finch may be
blameless, his morals, if we only knew it, are as degraded
as those of all other artists. I feel as certain as I am that
I am sitting here that George Finch is a loose fish.”

“‘ Fish |’? moaned Lord Hunstanton.

“And I have made up my mind that there is only one
thing to do if I am to expose the man in his true colours,
and that is to go to the den which he maintains near
Washington Square and question his man-servant as to
his private life. We will start at once.”

“But, I say, you don’t need me? ”

“Certainly I need you. Do you imagine that I pro-
pose to call at this man’s lair alone ? ”

Across the landing at the top of the stairs there passed
a waiter bearing a tray with a smoking dish upon it.
Lord Hunstanton followed him with haggard eyes: and,
having watched him enter the restaurant, wished he had
not done so, for there by one of the tables stood another
waiter carving for a party of four what looked like the
roast chicken of a lifetime,—one of those roast chickens
you tell your grandchildren about. His lordship uttered
a faint, whinnying sound and clenched his hands.

‘Come!’ said Mrs. Waddington. “Let us go.”

The thought of defying this overpowering woman did
not enter Lord Hunstanton’s mind. Nobody ever defied
Mrs. Waddington. And so, some little time later, aecab

12

174 THE SMALL BACHELOR

drew up outside the Sheridan. Apartment House and two
figures proceeded to climb the stairs—for it was one of the
pleasing features of the Sheridan that the elevator was
practically always out of order.

Arrived at the top floor, Lord Hunstanton rang the bell.
The sound echoed faintly within.

‘* Seems to be out,” said his lordship, having tried again.

“We will wait.”

** What, here?”

**On the roof.”

* How long? ”

“ Until this Finch’s man-servant returns.”

‘“‘ But he may be hours.”’

‘‘Then we will wait hours.”

Lord Hunstanton’s aching interior urged him to protest.
‘Be brave!’ it gurgled. And, whilst still not sufficiently
courageous to defy, he nerved himself to make a suggestion.

“How would it be,” he said, “if I just pushed round
the corner somewhere and snatched a bite? I mean to
say, you never know whether this man-servant fellow won’t
turn nasty. Sticking up for the young master, I mean
to say. In which case, I should be twice the man with a
bit of food inside me. With a dish of beans or something
nicely poised within, I could do my bit.”

Mrs. Waddington regarded him scornfully.

“Very well. But kindly return as soon as possible.”

* Oh, I will, by Jove! Just want to pack away a hasty
prune. I'll be back before you know I’ve gone.”

“You will find me on the roof.”’

“On the roof. Right! Well, tinkety-tonk, then, for
the moment,”’ said his lordship, and pattered off down the
stairs.

Mrs. Waddington mounted another flight, and came out
under the broad canopy of heaven. She found herself
with a choice of views, the glittering city that stretched
away below and the dark windows of the Finch lair. She
chose the windows and watched them narrowly.

She had been watching them for some considerable time,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 175

when suddenly the middle ones, the French windows, lit
up. And, as she stepped forward, her rosiest dreams were
realized. Across the yellow blind there passed a shadow
which was plainly that of a young female person, no doubt
of a grade of morality so low that in any other place but
Washington Square it would have provoked the raised
eyebrow and the sharp intake of the breath. Mrs. Wad-
dington advanced to the window and tapped upon it
imperiously.

There was a startled exclamation from within. The
blind shot up, revealing a stoutish man in sober black.
The next moment the window was opened, and the stoutish
man popped his head out.

““Who’s there ? ” he asked.

““I am,” said Mrs. Waddington.

*“ Jiminy Christmas !’”’ said the stoutish man.

§2

Frederick Mullett had been in a nervous frame of mind
all the afternoon, more nervous even than that of the
ordinary bridegroom on his wedding day. For he had
been deeply exercised for many hours past by the problem
of what his bride had been up to that afternoon.

Any bridegroom would be upset if his newly-made wife
left him immediately after the ceremony on the plea that
she had important business to attend to and would see bim
later. Frederick Mullett was particularly upset. It was
not so much the fact that he had planned a golden after-
noon of revelry including a visit to Coney Island and
had had to forgo it that disturbed him. That the delight-
ful programme should have been cancelled was, of course,
a disappointment: but what really caused him mental
anguish was the speculation as to what from the view-point
of a girl like Fanny constituted important business. Her
reticence on this vital question had spoiled his whole
day.

He was, in short, in exactly the frame of mind when a
man who has married a pickpocket and has watched ther

176 THE SMALL BACHELOR

go off on important business does not want to hear people
tapping sharply on windows. If a mouse had crossed
the floor at that moment, Frederick Mullett would have
suspected it of being a detective in disguise. He peered
at Mrs. Waddington with cold horror.

‘What do you want ?”’

“I wish to see and question the young woman who is in
this apartment.”

Mullett’s mouth felt dry. A shiver ran down his spine.

“What young woman?”

** Come, come! ”’

“‘ There isn’t any young woman here.”

* Tut, tut!”

“There isn’t, I tell you.”

Mrs. Waddington’s direct mind was impatient of this
attempt to deceive.

“T will make it worth your while to tell the truth,”
she said.

Mullett recoiled. The thought that he was being asked
to sell his bride on the very day of their wedding revolted
him. Not that he would have sold her at any time, of
course, but being asked to do so on this day of all days
made the thing seem, as Officer Garroway would have
said, so peculiarly stark and poignant.

With a frenzied gesture of abhorrence he slammed the
window. He switched off the light and with agonized
bounds reached the kitchen, where Mrs. Frederick Mullett
was standing at the range stirring a welsh rarebit.

“* Hello, sweetie ! ’’ cooed his bride, looking up. ‘I’m
just fixing the rabbit. The soup’s ready.”

“And we’re in it,” said Mullett hollowly.

“Why, whatever do you mean?”

“Fanny, where did you go this afternoon ? ”

** Just down into the country, dearie. I told you.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me what you did there.”

“It’s a secret for the present, darling. I want to keep
{t as a surprise. It’s something to do with some money
tha*’s coming to us.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 177

Mullett eyed her wanly.

“‘ Fanny, were you doing a job this afternoon down there
in the country?”

“Why, Freddy Mullett! What an idea!”

“Then what are the bulls here for ? ”’

“The bulls!”

““There’s a female dick out on the roof right now.
And she’s asking for you.”

Fanny stared, round-eyed.

“Asking for me? You're crazy.”

“‘ She said ‘I wish to see and question the young woman
who is in this apartment.’ Those were her very words.”

“‘T’ll take a peek at her.”

‘“‘ Don’t let her see you,” begged Mullett, alarmed.

“Ts it likely!”

Fanny walked composedly to the sitting-room. She felt
no concern. The most comforting possession in the world
is, of course, a quiet conscience: but almost as good is
the knowledge that you have left no tracks behind you.
Fanny was positive that, on taking her departure from the
Waddington home at Hempstead that afternoon, she
had made a nice clean getaway and could not possibly have
been followed to this place by even the most astute of
female dicks. Mullett, she was convinced, must have
misunderstood this woman, whoever she might be.

She drew the blind aside an inch and looked cautiously
out. The intruder was standing so close to the window
that it was possible even in the uncertain light to get an
adequate view of her: and what she saw reassured Fanny.
She returned to her anxious husband with words of cheer.

‘“‘That’s no dick,” she said. ‘I can tell em a mile
off.”

“Then who is she ? ”

“You'd better ask her. Listen, you go and kid her
along and I’ll sneak out. Then we can meet somewhere
when you’re through. It’s a shame having to waste this
nice supper, but we’ll go to a restaurant. Listen, I'll be
waiting for you at the Astor.” ‘

178 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“ But if she’s not a dick, why not stay where we are ? ”

“You don’t want people knowing that I’m here, do you ?
Suppose your boss heard of it, what would he say?”

“That’s true. All right, then. Wait for me at the
Astor. Though it’s kind of a swell place, isn’t it?”

“Well, don’t you want a swell place to dine at on your
wedding night ? ”

** You're right.”

“I’m always right,” said Fanny, giving her husband’s
cheek a loving pinch. ‘“ That’s the first thing you’ve got
to get into your head, now you're a married man.”

Mullett returned to the sitting-room and switched on the
light again. He felt fortified. He opened the window
with something of an air.

“You were saying, ma’am ? ”

Mrs. Waddington was annoyed.

““ What do you mean by going away and slamming the
window in my face? ”

“‘Had to see to something in the kitchen, ma’am. Is
there anything I can do for you?”

“There is. I wish to know who the young woman is
who is in the apartment.”

“No young woman in this apartment, ma’am.”’

Mrs. Waddington began to feel that she was approaching
this matter from the wrong angle. She dipped in her bag.

“‘ Here is a ten-dollar bill.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“T should like to ask you a few questions.”

“Very good, ma’am.”’

“And I shall be obliged if you will answer them
truthfully. How long have you been in Mr. Finch’s
employment ? ”

‘“‘ About a couple of months, ma’am.”

“‘ And what is your opinion of Mr. Finch’s morals ? ”

“‘ They’re swell.”

“Nonsense. Don’t attempt to deceive me. Is it not
a fact that during your term of employment you have
frequently admitted female visitors to this apartment ? ”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 179

“Only models, ma’am.”

“* Models ! ”’

“Mr. Finch is an artist.”

“‘T am aware of it,’”’ said Mrs. Waddington with a shiver.
“‘So you persist in your statement that Mr. Finch’s mode
of life is not irregular ? ”

“Yes, ma’am.”

““Then,’”’ said Mrs. Waddington, twitching the ten-
dollar bill neatly from his grasp, ‘‘ it may interest you to
know that I do not believe you.”

“Here, hey!” cried Mullett, deeply moved. ‘“ You
gave me that!”

“And I have taken {it back,’ said Mrs. Waddington;
replacing the bill in her bag. ‘‘ You do not deserve it.”

Mullett slammed the window, outraged in his finest
feelings. For some moments he stood, fermenting. Then,
seething with justifiable indignation, he switched off the
light once more and went out.

He had reached the foot of the stairs, when he heard
his name spoken, and, turning, was aware of a long police-
man regarding him with a mild friendliness.

“Surely it is Mr. Mullett?’ said the policeman.

‘* Hullo ? ’’ said Mullett, somewhat embarrassed. Habit
is not easily overcome, and there had been a time when
the mere sight of a policeman had made him tremble like
a leaf.

“You remember me? My name is Garroway. We
met some weeks ago.”

“ Why, sure,’’ said Mullett, relieved. ‘‘ You’re the poet.”

“It is very nice of you to say so,”’ said Officer Garroway,
simpering a little. ‘1 am about to call at Mr. Beamish’s
apartment now with my latest effort. And how has the
world been using you, Mr. Mullett ? ”

“ All right. Everything hunky-dory with you?”

“Completely. Well, I must not detain you. No doubt
you are on your way to some important appointment.”

“That’s right. Say!” said Mullett, suddenly inspired.
“‘ Are you on duty?”

180 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“‘ Not for the moment.”

“But you wouldn’t object to making a cop?”

“By no means. I am always willing—and, indeed,
anxious—to make a cop.”

‘“* Well, there was a suspicious character on our roof
just now. A woman. I didn’t like the look of her.”

“Indeed ? This is extremely interesting.’

“She was snooping around, looking in at our windows,
and I don’t think she’s up to any good. You might go
and ask her what she wants.”

“TI will attend to the matter immediately.”

*“‘ If I was you, I’d pinch her on suspicion. So long.’

“‘Good night, Mr. Mullett.”

Mullet, with the elation which comes from a good deed
done, moved buoyantly off to his tryst. Officer Garroway,
swinging his night-stick, climbed thoughtfully up the stairs.

§3

Mrs. Waddington, meanwhile, had not been content
with a policy of watchful waiting. She was convinced
that the shadow which she had seen on the blind had been
that of a young woman! and instinct told her that in
an apartment near Washington Square where there was
a@ young woman present events were not likely to remain
static for any considerable length of time. No doubt
the man she had questioned would have warned the young
woman of her visit, and by now she had probably gone
away. But she would return. And George Finch would
return. It was simply a question of exercising patience.

But she must leave the roof. The roof was the first
place the guilty pair would examine. If they found it
empty, their fears would be lulled. The strategic move
indicated was to go downstairs and patrol the street.
There she could stay until things began to happen again.

She was about to move away, and had already taken a
step towards the door that led to the stairs, when a slight
creaking noise attracted her attention and she was sur-
prised to observe the window swinging open.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 181

It opened some six inches: then, caught by a gust of
wind, closed again. A moment later, there was another
creak and it moved outward once more. Apparently, in
the agony of losing his ten dollars, the man had omitted
to fasten the catch.

Mrs. Waddington stopped. She drew a step nearer.
She grasped the handle and, pulling the window wide
open, peered into the dark room. It seemed to be empty,
but Mrs. Waddington was a cautious woman.

“ My man!” she called.

Silence.

“I wish to speak to you.”

More silence. Mrs. Waddington applied the supreme
test.

“T want to return that ten-dollar bill to you.”

Still silence. Mrs. Waddington was convinced. She
crossed the threshold and started to feel round the walls
for the switch. And, as she did so, something came to her
through the throbbing darkness.

It was the smell of soup.

Mrs. Waddington stiffened like a pointing dog. Although
when sitting in the vestibule of the Ritz-Carlton with
Lord Hunstanton she had apparently been impervious
to the fragrant scents which had so deeply affected his
lordship, she was human. It was long past the hour at
which she usually dined, and in the matter of sustenance
she was a woman of regular habits. Already, while
standing on the roof, she had been aware of certain pangs,
and now she realized beyond all possibility of doubt that
she was hungry. She quivered from head to foot. The
smell of that soup seemed to call to the deeps of her being
like the voice of an old old love.

Moving forward like one in a trance, she groped along the
wall, and found herself in an open doorway that appeared
to lead into a passage. Here, away from the window, the
darkness was blacker than ever: but, if she could not
see, she could smell, and she needed no other guide than

182 THE SMALL BACHELOR

her nose. She walked along the passage, sniffing, and,
coming to another open door, found the scent so powerful
that she almost reeled. It had become a composite odour
now, with a strong welsh rarebit motif playing through it.
Mrs. Waddington felt for the switch, pressed it down,
and saw that she was in a kitchen. And there, simmering
on the range, was a saucepan.

There are moments when even the most single-minded
of women will allow herself to be distracted from the main
object of her thoughts. Mrs. Waddington had reached
the stage where soup seemed to her the most important—
if not the only—thing in life. She removed the lid from
the saucepan, and a meaty steaminess touched her like
a kiss.

She drew a deep breath. She poured some of the soup
into a plate. She found a spoon. She found bread.
She found salt. She found pepper.

And it was while she was lovingly sprinkling the pepper
that a voice spoke behind her.

“You're pinched!’ said the voice.

§ 4

There were not many things which could have diverted
Mrs. Waddington’s attention at that moment from the
plate before her. An earthquake might have done it.
So might the explosion of a bomb. This voice accom-
plished it instantaneously. She spun round with a sharp
scream, her heart feeling as if it were performing one of
those eccentric South Seas dances whose popularity she
had always deplored.

A policeman was standing in the doorway.

‘‘ Arrested, I should have said,’’ added the policeman
with a touch of apology. He seemed distressed that
in the first excitement of this encounter he had failed to
achieve the Word Beautiful.

Mrs. Waddington was not a woman often at a loss
for speech, but she could find none now. She stood

panting.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 188

“TI must ask you, if you will be so good,” said the
policeman courteously, ‘‘ to come along with me. And it
will avoid a great deal of unpleasantness if you come
quietly.”

The torpor consequent upon the disintegrating shock
of this meeting began to leave Mrs. Waddington.

“YT can explain!” she cried.

“You will have every opportunity of doing so at the
station-house,’”’ said the policeman. ‘‘ In your own inter-
ests I should advise you until then to say as little as pos-
sible. For I must warn you that in pursuance of my duty
I shall take a memorandum of any statement which you
may make. See, I have my notebook and pencil here in
readiness.”’

“I was doing no harm.”

“That is for the judge to decide. I need scarcely point
out that your presence in this apartment is, to say the
least, equivocal. You came in through a window—an
action which constitutes breaking and entering,—and, fur-
thermore, I find you in the act of purloining the property
of the owner of the apartment,—to wit, soup. I am
afraid I must ask you to accompany me.”

Mrs. Waddington started to clasp her hands in a des-
perate appeal: and, doing so, was aware that some obstacle
prevented this gesture.

It was suddenly borne in upon her that she was still
holding the pepper-pot. And suddenly a thought came
like a full-blown rose, flushing her brow.

‘‘Hal’’ she exclaimed.

‘‘IT beg your pardon? ’’ said the policeman.

Everything in this world, every little experience which
we undergo or even merely read about, is intended, philo-
sophers tell us, to teach us something, to help to equip
us for the battle of life. It was not, according to this
theory, mere accident, therefore, which a few days before
had caused Mrs. Waddington to read and subconsciously
memorize the report that had appeared in the evening
paper to which she subscribed of a burglary at the nesi-

184 THE SMALL BACHELOR

dence of a certain leading citizen of West Orange, New
Jersey. The story had been sent to help her.

Of the less important details of this affair she retained
no recollection: but the one salient point in connection
with it came back to her now with all the force of an
inspiration from above. Cornered by an indignant house-
holder, she recalled, the West Orange burglar had made
his escape by the simple means of throwing about two
ounces of pepper in the householder’s face.

What this humble, probably uneducated, man had been
able to achieve was surely not beyond the powers of a
woman like herself,—the honorary president of twenty-
three charitable societies and a well-known lecturer on
the upbringing of infants. Turning coyly sideways, she
began to unscrew the top of the pot.

“You will understand,’ said the policeman depreca-
tingly, ‘‘ that this is extremely unpleasant for me...”

He was perfectly right. Unpleasant, he realized a
moment later, was the exact adjective which the most
punctilious stylist would have chosen. For suddenly the
universe seemed to dissolve in one great cloud-burst of
pepper. Pepper tickled his mouth: pepper filled his
nose: pepper strayed into his eyes and caressed his Adam’s
apple. For an instant he writhed blindly: then, clutching
at the table for support, he began to sneeze.

With the sound of those titanic sneezes ringing in her
ears, Mrs. Waddington bumped her way through the dark-
ness till she came to the open window: then, galloping
across the roof, hurled herself down the fire-escape.

§5

The only thing in the nature of a policy or plan of action
which Mrs. Waddington had had when making for the fire-
escape had been a general desire to be as far away as
possible for the representative of the Law when he stopped
sneezing and opened his eyes and began to look around
him for his assailant. But, as her feet touched the first
runzs, more definite schemes began to shape themselves

THE SMALL BACHELOR 185

Fire-escapes, she knew, led, if followed long enough, to
the ground: and she decided to climb to safety down this
one. It was only when she had descended as far as the
ninth floor that, glancing below her, she discovered that
this particular fire-escape terminated not, as she had sup-
posed, in some back-alley, but in the gaily-lighted out-
door premises of a restaurant, half the tables of which
were already filled.

This sight gave her pause. In fact, to be accurate, it
froze her stiff. Nor was her agitation without reason.
Those of the readers of this chronicle who have ever thrown
pepper in a policeman’s face, and skimmed away down a
fire-escape, are aware that fire-escapes, considered as a
refuge, have the defect of being uncomfortably exposed
to view. At any moment, felt Mrs. Waddington, the
policeman might come to the edge of the roof and look
down: and to deceive him into supposing that she was
merely a dust-bin or a milk-bottle was, she knew, beyond
her histrionic powers,

The instinct of self-preservation not only sharpens the
wits, but at the same time dulls the moral sensibility.
It was so with Mrs. Waddington now. Her quickened
intelligence perceived in a flash that if she climbed in
through the window outside which she was now standing
she would be safe from scrutiny: and her blunted moral
sense refused to consider the fact that such an action—
amounting, as it did, to what her policeman playmate had
called breaking and entering—would be most reprehen-
sible. Besides, she had broken and entered one apart-
ment already that night, and the appetite grows by what
it feeds on. Some ten seconds later, therefore, Mrs. Wad-
dington was once more groping through the darkness of
somebody else’s dwelling-place.

A well-defined scent of grease, damp towels and old
cabbages told her that the room through which she was
creeping was a kitchen: but the blackness was so uniform
that she could see nothing of her surroundings. The only
thing she was able to say definitely of this kitchen at che

186 THE SMALL BACHELOR

moment was that it contained a broom. This she knew
because she had just stepped on the end of it, and the
handle had shot up and struck her very painfully on the
forehead.

“Ouch !”’ cried Mrs. Waddington.

She had not intended to express any verbal comment
on the incident, for those who creep at night through
other people’s kitchens must be silent and wary: but the
sudden agony was so keen that she could not refrain from
comment. And to her horror she found that her cry had
been heard. There came through the darkness a curious
noise like the drawing of a cork, and then somebody spoke.

‘Who are you?”’ said an unpleasant, guttural voice.

Mrs. Waddington stopped, paralysed. She would not,
in the circumstances, have heard with any real pleasure
the most musical of speech: but a soft, sympathetic
utterance would undoubtedly have afflicted her with a
shade less of anguish and alarm. This voice was the voice
of one without human pity; a grating, malevolent voice ;
a voice that set Mrs. Waddington thinking quiveringly in
headlines :

“*SOCIETY LEADER FOUND SLAIN IN
KITCHEN.’”’

*‘Who are you? ”’

*“* BODY DISMEMBERED BENEATH SINK,’”

‘Who are you? ”’

“"“SEVERED HEAD LEADS TRACKERS TO
DEATH-SPOT.’”’

‘‘Who are you?”

Mrs. Waddington gulped.

“TIT am Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington,” she faltered.
And it would have amazed Sigsbee H., had he heard her,
to discover that it was possible for her to speak with such
a@ winning meekness,

“Who are you ? ”’

“Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, of East Seventy-Ninth
Street and Hempstead, Long Island. I must apologize
forethe apparent strangeness of my conduct in. ; .”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 187

*‘Who are you?”

Annoyance began to compete with Mrs. Waddington’s
terror. Deaf persons had always irritated her, for like
sO many women of an impatient and masterful turn of
mind, she was of opinion that they could hear perfectly
well if they took the trouble. She raised her voice and
answered with a certain stiffness.

“‘T have already informed you that I am Mrs. Sigsbee
H. Waddington... .”’

‘“‘ Have a nut,”’ said the voice, changing the subject.

Mrs. Waddington’s teeth came together with a sharp
click. All the other emotions which had been afflicting her
passed abruptly away, to be succeeded by a cold fury.
Few things are more mortifying to a proud woman than
the discovery that she had been wasting her time being
respectful to a parrot: and only her inability to locate
the bird in the surrounding blackness prevented a rather
unpleasant brawl. Had she been able to come to grips
with it, Mrs. Waddington at that moment would undoubt-
edly have done the parrot no good whatever.

‘‘Brrh!’’ she exclaimed, expressing her indignation as
effectively as was possible by mere speech: and, ignoring
the other’s request—in the circumstances, ill-timed and
tasteless—that she should stop and scratch its head, she
pushed forward in search of the door.

Reaction had left her almost calm. The trepidation
of a few moments back had vanished; and she advanced
now in a brisk and business-like way. She found the door
and opened it. There was more darkness beyond, but an
uncurtained window gave sufficient light for her to see
that she was in a sitting-room. Across one corner of this
room lay a high-backed chesterfield. In another corner
stood a pedestal desk. And about the soft carpet there
were distributed easy chairs in any one of which Mrs.
Waddington, had the conditions been different, would
have been delighted to sit and rest.

But, though she had been on her feet some considerable
time now and was not a woman who enjoyed standiig,

188 THE SMALL BACHELOR

prudence warned her that the temptation to relax must be
resisted. It was a moment for action, not repose. She
turned to the door which presumably led into the front
hall and thence to the stairs and safety: and had just
opened it when there came the click of a turning key.

Mrs. Waddington acted swiftly. The strange calm
which had been upon her dissolved into a panic fear.
She darted back into the sitting-room: and, taking the
chesterfield in an inspired bound, sank down behind it
and tried not to snort.

““Been waiting long?’’ asked some person unseen,
switching on the light and addressing an invisible
companion.

The voice was strange to Mrs. Waddington: but about
the one that replied to it there was something so fruitily
familiar that she stiffened where she lay, scarcely able to
credit hersenses. For it was the voice of Ferris, her butler.
And Ferris, if the truth was in him, should by now have
been at the sick-bed of a relative.

‘*Some little time, sir, but it has caused me no incon-
venience.”

‘“What did you want to see me about ? ”’

“‘I am addressing Mr. Lancelot Biffen, the editor-in-
chief of ‘Town Gossip’? ”

“Yes. Talk quick. I’ve got to go out again in a
minute.”’

‘IT understand, Mr. Biffen, that ‘Town Gossip’ is glad
to receive and pay a substantial remuneration for items of
interest concerning those prominent in New York society.
I have such an item,”

‘“Who’s it about?”

‘‘My employer,—Mrs. Sigsbee H. Waddington, sir.’

*‘What’s she been doing ? ”’

‘‘It is a long story...”

‘‘ Then I haven’t time to listen to it.”

‘‘ It concerns the sensational interruption to the marriage
of Mrs. Waddington’s step-daughter . . .”

& Didn’t the wedding come off, then?”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 189

*“No, sir, And the circumstances which prevented
it...”

Mr. Biffen uttered an exclamation. He had apparently
looked at his watch and been dismayed by the flight of
time.

““T must run,” he said. ‘I’ve a date at the Algonquin
in a quarter of an hour. Come and talk to me at the
office to-morrow.”

“‘T fear that will be impossible, sir, owing to...

“‘Then, see here. Have you ever done any writing ? ”’

“Yes, sir. At Little-Seeping-in-the-Wold I frequently
contributed short articles to the parish magazine. The
vicar spoke highly of them.”’

‘‘ Then sit down and write the thing out. Use your own
words and I[’ll polish it up later. I'll be back in an hour,
if you want to wait.”’

‘Very good, sir. And the remuneration?”

“We'll talk about that later.’

*“* Very good, sir.”’

Mr. Biffen left the room. There followed a confused
noise,—apparently from his bedroom, in which he seemed
to be searching for something. Then the front door
slammed, and quiet descended upon the apartment.

Mrs. Waddington continued to crouch behind her ches-
terfield. There had been a moment, immediately after
the departure of Mr. Biffen, when she had half risen with
the intention of confronting her traitorous butler and
informing him that he had ceased to be in her employment.
But second thoughts had held her back. Gratifying as
it would undoubtedly be to pop her head up over the
back of the sofa and watch the man cower beneath her
eye, the situation, she realized, was too complicated to
permit such a procedure. She remained where she was,
and whiled away the time by trying out methods to relieve
the cramp from which her lower limbs had already begun
to suffer.

From the direction of the desk came the soft scratching

13

190 THE SMALL BACHELOR

of pen on paper. Ferris was plainly making quite a job
of it, putting all his energies into his task. He seemed
to be one of those writers, like Flaubert, who spare no
pains in the quest for perfect clarity and are prepared to
correct and re-correct indefinitely till their artist-souls are
satisfied. It seemed to Mrs. Waddington as though her
vigil was to go on for ever.

But in a bustling city like New York it is rarely that the
artist is permitted to concentrate for long without inter-
ruption. A telephone-bell broke raspingly upon the still-
ness: and the first sensation of pleasure which Mrs. Wad-
dington had experienced for a very long time came to her
as she realized that the instrument was ringing in the
passage outside and not in the room. With something
of the wild joy which reprieved prisoners feel at the
announcement of release, she heard the butlerrise. And
presently there came from a distance his measured voice
informing some unseen inquirer that Mr. Biffen was not at
home.

Mrs. Waddington rose from her form. She had about
twenty seconds in which to act, and she wasted none of
them. By the time Ferris had returned and was once
more engrossed in his literary composition, she was in the
kitchen.

She stood by the window, looking out at the fire-escape.
Surely by this time, she felt, it would be safe to climb
once more up to the roof. She decided to count three
hundred very slowly and risk it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OLLY and Sigsbee Horatio, the latter muttering
M “Gallagher! Gallagher! Gallagher!’ to him-
self in order that the magic name should not
again escape him, had started out in the two-seater about
a quarter of an hour after the departure of Mrs. Wadding-
ton’s Hispano-Suiza. Half-way to New York, however,
a blow-out had arrested their progress: and the inability
of Sigsbee H. to make a quick job of fixing the spare wheel
had further delayed them. It was not, therefore, till
almost at the exact moment when Mrs. Waddington was
committing the rash act which had so discomposed Officer
Garroway, that Molly, having dropped her father at
Police Headquarters, arrived at the entrance of the
Sheridan.

She hurried up the stairs and rang George’s front-door
bell. For awhile it seemed as if her ringing was to meet
with no response: then, after some minutes, footsteps
made themselves heard coming along the passage. The
door opened, and Molly found herself gazing into the
inflamed eyes of a policeman.

She looked at him with surprise. She had never seen
him before, and she rather felt that she would have pre-
ferred not to see him now: for he was far from being a pleas-
ingsight. Hisnose, earsand eyes were a vivid red : and his
straggling hair dripped wetly on to the floor. With the
object of diminishing the agony caused by the pepper,
Office Garroway had for some time been holding his head
under the tap in the kitchen: and he now looked exactly
like the body which had been found after several days in
the river. The one small point that differentiated him
from a corpse was the fact that he was sneezing.

‘‘ What are you doing here? ’’ exclaimed Molly. .

19]

192 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘ Achoo!” replied Officer Garroway.

‘“ What ?’’ said Molly.

The policeman, with a nobility which should have
earned him promotion, checked another sneeze.

‘‘ There has been an outrage,’’ he said.

‘Mr. Finch has not been hurt ? ”’ cried Molly, alarmed.

‘‘Mr. Finch hasn't. I have.’’

‘Who are you?”’

‘‘My name is Gar-hosh-hoosh-hish.”

** What?”

*‘Gar-ish-wash-WUSH ... Garroway,”’ said the police-
man, becoming calmer.

“Where is Mr. Finch?”

‘‘T could not say, miss.”

** Have you a cold? ”’

‘*No, miss, not.a ker-osh-wosh-osh. A woman threw
pepper in my face.”’

‘“You ought not to know such women,” said Molly
severely.

The injustice of this stung Officer Garroway.

“TI did not know her socially. I was arresting her.”’

“Oh, I see.”’

“‘I found her burgling this apartment.”

‘*Good gracious |! ’’

“And when I informed her that I was compelled to
take her into custody, she threw pepper in my face and
escaped.”’

“You poor manl”

“Thank you, miss,’’ said Officer Garroway gratefully.
A man can do with a bit of sympathy on these occasions,
nor is such sympathy rendered less agreeable by the fact
that the one who offers it is young and charming and
gazes at you with large, melting blue eyes. It was at
this point that Officer Garroway began for the first time
to be aware of a distinct improvement in his con-
dition.

“Can I get you anything? ”’ said Molly.

Officer Garroway shook his head wistfully.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 198

“It’s against the law, miss, now. In fact, I am to be
one of a posse this very night that is to raid a restaurant
which supplies the stuff.’’

“IT meant something from adrug-store. Some ointment
or something.”’

“It is extremely kind of you, miss, but I could not dream
of putting you to so much trouble. I will look in at a
drug-store on my way to the station-house. I fear I
must leave you now, as I have to go and drish-hosh-hish.””

66 What ? a9

‘Dress, miss.”

‘‘But you are dressed.”

** For the purposes of the raid to which I alluded it is
necessary for our posse to put on full evening drah-woosh.
In order to deceive the staff of the rish-wish-wosh, and
lull them into a false security. It would never do, you see,
for us to go there in our uniforms. That would put them
on their guard.”

‘“‘ How exciting! What restaurant are you raiding? ”’

Officer Garroway hesitated.

‘‘ Well, miss, it is in the nature of an official secret, of
course, but on the understanding that you will let it go
no further, the rosh-ow-wush is the Purple Chicken, just
round the corner. I will wish you good night, miss, as I
really must be off.”’

‘‘But wait a moment. I came here to meet Mr. Finch.
Have you seen anything of him ? ”’

‘‘No, miss. Nobody has visited the apartment while I
have been there.”’

“Qh, then I’ll wait. Good night. I hope you will
fee] better soon.”’

‘‘I feel better already, miss,’’ said Officer Garroway
gallantly, ‘thanks to your kind sympathy. Good nish-
nosh, miss.”’

Molly went out on to the roof, and stood there gazing
over the million twinkling lights of the city. At this
height the voice of New York sank to a murmur, and the
air was sweet andcool. Little breezes rustled in the pofted

194 THE SMALL BACHELOR

shrubs over which Mullet was wont to watch with such
sedulous care, and a half-moon was shining in rather a
deprecating way, as if conscious of not being at its best
in such surroundings. For, like Sigsbee H. Waddington
(now speeding towards his third Gallagher), the moon,
really to express itself, needs the great open spaces.

Molly, however, found nothing to criticize in that pale
silver glow. She felt a proprietary interest in the moon.
It was her own private and personal moon, and should have
been shining in through the windows of the drawing-room
of the train that bore her away on her wedding-journey.
That that journey had been postponed was in no way the
fault of the moon: and, gazing up at it, she tried to convey
by her manner her appreciation of the fact.

It was at this point that a strangled exclamation broke
the stillness: and, turning, she perceived George Finch.

George Finch stood in the moonlight, staring dumbly.
Although what he saw before him had all the appearance
of being Molly, and though a rash and irreflective observer
would no doubt have said that it was Molly, it was so
utterly impossible that she could really be there that he
concluded that he was suffering from an hallucination.
The nervous strain of the exacting day through which he
had passed had reduced him, he perceived, to the condi-
tion of those dying travellers in the desert who see mirages.
And so he remained where he was, not daring to approach
closer: for he knew that if you touch people in dreams
they vanish.

But Molly was of a more practical turn of mind. She
had come twenty miles to see George. She had waited
for George for what seemed several hours. And here
George was. She did the sensible thing. Uttering a
little squeak of rapture, she ran at him like a rabbit.

‘‘Georgie! My pet!”

One lives and learns. George found that he had been
all wrong, and that his preconceived ideas about dreams
and what could and could not happen in them must be
reviged. For, so far from vanishing when touched, his

THE SMALL BACHELOR 195

wraith appeared to be growing more substantial every
moment.

He shut his eyes and kissed her tentatively He opened
his eyes. She was still there.

‘‘Is it really you? ’’ said George.

“Yes, really me.”

‘But how... what...?”

It was borne in upon George—for he was a young man
of good average intelligence—that he was spoiling a golden
moment with unseasonable chatter. This was no time
for talk. He talked, accordingly, no more; and there
was silence on the roof. The moon looked down, well
pleased. There is not much of interest for a moon to
look at in a large city, and this was the sort of thing it
liked best,—the only sort of thing, if you came right
down to it, that made it worth a moon’s while to shine
at all.

George clung to Molly, and Molly clung to George, like
two shipwrecked survivors who have come together on
a wave-swept beach. And the world moved on, forgotten.

But the world will never allow itself to be forgotten
for long. Suddenly George broke away with an exclama-
tion. He ran to the wall and looked over.

‘‘What’s the matter? ”’

George returned, reassured. His concern had been
groundless.

‘“‘IT thought I saw some one on the fire-escape, dar-
ling.”’

‘‘Qn the fire-escape? Why, who could it be? ”’

“T thought it might be the man who has the apartment
on the floor below. A ghastly, sneaking, snooping fellow
named Lancelot Biffen. I’ve known him to climb up
before. He’s the editor of ‘ Town Gossip,’ the last person
we want to have watching us.”’

Molly uttered a cry of alarm.

‘“‘ You're sure he wasn’t there ? ”’

‘“‘ Quite sure.”

‘It would be awful if anyone saw me here.”

196 THE SMALL BACHELOR

George silently cursed the too vivid imagination which
had led him to suppose that he had seen a dark form
outlined against the summer sky. He had spoiled the
golden moment, and it could not be recaptured.

‘Don’t be afraid, dear,’’ he said. ‘‘ Even if he had
seen you, he would never have guessed who you were.”

““You mean he would naturally expect to find you
up here kissing some girl ? ”’

George was in the state of mind when a man cannot
be quite sure what his words mean, if anything: but so
positive was he that he did not mean this that he got his
tongue tied in a knot trying to say so in three different ways
simultaneously.

‘Well, after what happened this afternoon . . .” said
Molly.

She drew away. She was not normally an unkind
girl, but the impulse of the female of the species to torture
the man it loves is well-known. Women may be a minis-
tering angel when pain and anguish wring the brow:
but, if at other times she sees a chance to prod the loved
one and watch him squirm, she hates to miss it.

George’s tongue appeared to him to be now in the sort
of condition a ball of wool is in after a kitten has been
playing with it. With a supreme effort he contrived to
straighten out a few of the major kinks, just sufficient to
render speech possible.

‘“‘T swear to you,’’ began George, going so far in his
emotion as to raise a passionate fist towards the moon.

Molly gurgled delightedly. She loved this young man
most when he looked funny: and he had seldom looked
funnier than now.

‘‘T swear to you on my solemn oath that I had never
seen that infernal girl before in my life.’’

‘* She seemed to know you so well.’’

“She was a perfect, complete, total, utter and absolute
stranger.”

“Are you sure? Perhaps you had simply forgotten
all about her.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 197

*“*I swear it,’’ said George, and only just stopped him-
self from adding ‘by yonder moon.’ “If you want to
know what I think... .”

“Oh, I do.”

“I believe she was mad. Stark, staring mad.’

Molly decided that the anguish had lasted long enough.
A girl has to judge these things to a nicety. Sufficient
agony is good for a man, stimulating his mind and keeping
him bright and alert: but too much is too much.

‘‘ Poor old Georgie! ’’ she said soothingly. ‘‘ Youdon’t
really suppose for a moment that I believed a word of what
she said, do you?”

““What! You didn’t?”

** Of course I didn’t.”

** Molly,’’ said George, weighing his words, ‘‘ you are
without exception the dearest, sweetest, loveliest, most
perfect and angelic thing that ever lived.”’

“I know. Aren’t you lucky?”

‘“‘'You saw at once that the girl was mad, didn’t you P
You realized immediately that she was suffering from
some sort of obsession, poor soul, which made her. . .”

‘No, I didn’t. I couldn’t think what it was all about
at first, and then father came in and said that my pearl
necklace had disappeared, and I understood.”’

“Your pearl necklace? Disappeared ? ”’

“‘She stole it. She was a thief. Don’t you see? It
was really awfully clever. She couldn’t have got it any
other way. But when she burst in and said all those things
about you, naturally she took everybody’s attention off
the wedding-presents. And then she pretended to faint
on the table, and just snapped the necklace up and rushed
out, and nobody guessed what had happened.’

George drew in a whistling breath. His fists clenched.
He stared coldly at one of the potted shrubs as if it had
done him a personal injury.

“Tf ever I meet that girl...”

Molly laughed.

*“‘ Mother still insists that you had known her before

198 THE SMALL BACHELOR

and that the story she told was true and that she
only took the necklace as an afterthought. Isn’t she
funny !”’

‘*‘Funny,’’ said George heavily, “‘is not the word. She
is one long scream from the rise of the curtain, and ought
to be beaten over the head with a blackjack. If you
want my candid and considered opinion of that zymotic
scourge who has contrived to hook herself on to your
family in the capacity of step-mother to you and general
mischief-maker to the rest of the world, let me begin by
saying ... However, there is no time to go into that
now.”

‘No, there isn’t. I must be getting back.”

“Oh no!”

“‘Yes. I must go home and pack.’

** Pack ?”’

‘* Just a suit-case.”’

The universe reeled about George.

‘Do you mean you're going away ?”’ he quavered.

**Yes. To-morrow.”

*‘Oh, heavens! For long?’

“‘For ever. With you.”

“With ...?P”

‘Of course. Don’t you understand? I’m going home
now to pack a suit-case. Then I'll drive back to New
York and stay the night at an hotel, and to-morrow we'll
be married early in the morning, and in the afternoon
we'll go off together, all alone, miles and miles from every-
body.”

““ Molly |”

‘““Look at that moon. About now it ought to have
been shining into our drawing-room on the train.”

“Yes,”

“Well, there will be just as good a moon to-morrow
night.”’

George moistened his lips. Something seemed to be
tickling his nose, and inside his chest a curious growth
had begun to swell, rendering breathing difficult.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 199

** And half an hour ago,” he said, ‘‘ I thought I would
never see you again.”

“* Come down and put me in the car,’”’ said Molly briskly.
**T left it at the door.”

They descended the stairs. Owing to the eccentricity
of the elevator, George had frequently had to go up and
down these stairs before: but it was only now that he
noticed for the first time a peculiarity about them that
made them different from the stairs of every other apart-
ment-house he had visited. They were, he observed,
hedged about with roses and honeysuckle, and many more
birds were singing on them than you would expect in an
apartment-house. Odd. And yet, as he immediately
realized, all perfectly in order.

Molly climbed into the two-seater: and George men-
tioned a point which had presented itself to him.

“I don’t see why you need hurry off like this.”’

“I do. I’ve got to pack and get away before mother
gets home.”

“Is that blas . . . is your step-mother in New York?’”’

‘Yes. She came in to see the police.’

Until this moment George had been looking on New
York as something rather out of the common run of cities
—he particularly liked the way those violets were sprouting
up through the flagstones: but on receipt of this informa-
tion he found that it had lost a little of its charm.

‘* Oh, she’s in New York, is she? ”’

** Probably on her way home by now.’’

“You don’t think there’s time for us to go and have a
little dinner somewhere? Just a cosy little dinner at
some quiet little restaurant ? ”’

‘‘Good gracious, no! I’m running it very fine as it
is.’’ She looked at him closely. ‘‘ But, Georgie darling,
you're starving. I can see it. You're quite pale and
worn-out. When did you last have anything to eat?”

“Eat? Eat? I don’t remember.”

** What did you do after that business this afternoon ? ”’

**[—well, I walked around for awhile. And then I

200 THE SMALL BACHELOR

hung about in the bushes for awhile, hoping you would
come out. And then—I believe I went to the station
and took a train or something.”’

‘‘ You poor darling! Go and eat something at once.”

“Why can’t I come back to Hempstead with you?’”’

** Because you can’t.”

** What hotel will you go to to-night ? ”’

*‘I don’t know. But I'll come and see you for a minute
before I go there.”

““What, here? You'll come here? ”

** Yes.”

** You'll come back here ? ”’

** Yes,.”’

** You promise ? ”’

“Yes, if you will go and have some dinner. You look
perfectly ghastly.”’

‘Dinner? All right, I’ll have some.”

“Mind you do. If you haven’t by the time I get back,
T'll go straight home again and never marry you as long
as I live. Good-bye, darling, I must be off.”’

The two-seater moved away and turned into Washing-
ton Square. George stood looking after it long after
there was nothing to look at but empty street. Then he
started off, like some knight of old on a quest commanded
by his lady, to get the dinner on which she had so strongly
insisted. She had been wrong, of course, in telling him
to go and dine: for what he wanted to do and what any
good doctor would have recommended him to do was to
return to the roof and gaze at the moon. But her lightest
wish was law.

Where could he go most quickly and get the repulsive
task done with the minimum waste of time ?

The Purple Chicken. It was just round the corner, and
a resolute man if he stuck to their prix fixe table-d’héte
at one-dollar-fifty, could shovel a meal into himself in
about ten minutes—which was not long to ask the moon
to wait.

Besides, at the Purple Chicken you could get ‘it’ if

THE SMALL BACHELOR 201

they knew you. And George, though an abstemious
young man, felt that ‘it’ was just what at the moment
he most required. On an occasion like this he ought,
of course, to sip golden nectar from rare old crystal: but,
failing that, synthetic whisky served in a coffee-pot was
perhaps the next best thing.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

§1

HE Purple Chicken seemed to be having a big
night. Theroom opening on to the street, when
George reached It, was socrowded that there was
no chance of getting a table. He passed through, hoping
to find a resting-place in the open-air section which lay
beyond: and was struck, as he walked, by the extra-

ordinarily fine physique of many of the diners.

As a rule, the Purple Chicken catered for the intelli-
gentsia of the neighbourhood, and these did not run to
thewsandsinews. On most nights in the week you would
find the tables occupied by wispy poets and slender futurist
painters: but now, though these were present in great
numbers, they were supplemented by quite a sprinkling
of granite-faced men with knobby shoulders and pro-
truding jaws. George came to the conclusion that a
convention from one of the outlying States must bein town
and that these men were members of it, bent upon seeing
Bohemia.

He did not, however, waste a great deal of time in specu-
lation on this matter, for, stirred by the actual presence
of food, he had begun now to realize that Molly had been
right, as women always are, and that, while his whole
higher self cried out for the moon, his lower self was almost
equally as insistent on taking in supplies. And at this
particular restaurant it was happily possible to satisfy
both selves simultaneously: for there, as he stepped into
what the management called the garden—a flagged back-
yard dotted with tables—was the moon, all present and
correct, and there, also, were waiters waiting to supply
the prix fixe table-d’héte at one-dollar-fifty.

It seemed to George the neatest possible combination 1

202

THE SMALL BACHELOR 208

and his only anxiety now was with regard to the securing
of a seat. At first glance it appeared that every table
was occupied.

This conjecture was confirmed by a second glance. But,
though all the other tables had their full quota, there was
one, standing beside the Sheridan’s back wall and within
a few feet of its fire-escape, that was in the possession of
a single diner. This diner George approached, making
his expression as winning as possible. He did not, as a
rule, enjoy sharing a table with a stranger, but as an alter-
native to going away and trudging round in search of
another restaurant it seemed a good plan now.

‘“‘ Excuse me, sir,’’ said George, ‘“‘ would you mind if I
came to this table? ”’

The other looked up from the poulet r6ts aux pommes de
terve and salade Bruxellotse which had been engaging his
attention. He was plainly one of the convention from the
outlying State, if physique could be taken as a guide. He
spread upwards from the table like a circus giant and the
hands which gripped the knife and fork had that same
spaciousness which George had noted in the diners in the
other room. Only as to the eyes did this man differ from
his fellows. They had had eyes of a peculiarly steely and
unfriendly type, the sort of eyes which a motorist instinc-
tively associates with traffic-policemen and a professional
thief with professional detectives. This man’s gaze was
mild and friendly, and his eyes would have been attrac-
tive but for the redness of their rims and the generally
inflamed look which they had.

‘‘ By no means, sir,” he replied to George’s polite query.

‘* Place very crowded to-night.”

** Extremely.”

‘Then, if you won’t mind, I'll sit here.”

‘‘ Delighted,”’ said the other.

George looked round for a waiter and found one at his
elbow. However crowded the Purple Chicken might be,
its staff never neglected the old habitué: and it had had
the benefit of George’s regular custom for many months,

204 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“‘ Good evening, sare,’’ said the waiter, smiling the smile
which had once broken hearts in Assisi.

“Good evening, Guiseppe,”’ said George. ‘‘ I'll take the
dinner.”’

‘Yes, sare. Sick or glear zoop?”’

**Sick. Crowded to-night, Guiseppe.”

““ Yes, sare. Lots of guys here to-night. Big business.”

““The waiter appears to know you,’ said George’s
companion.

‘Oh, yes,’’ said George, ‘‘ I’m in here all the time.”

‘‘ Ah,”’ said the other, thoughtfully.

The soup arrived, and George set about it with a willing
spoon. His companion became hideously involved with
spaghetti.

‘This your first visit to New York?’’ asked George,
after an interval.

‘No, indeed, sir. I live in New York.”’

‘‘Oh, I thought you were up from the country.”

‘‘No, sir. I live nght here in New York.”’

A curious idea that he had seen this fellow before some-
where came over George. Yes, at some time and in some
place he could have sworn that he had gazed upon that
long body, that prominent Adam’s apple, and that gentle
expanse of face. He searched his memory Nothing
stirred.

‘‘T have an odd feeling that we have met before,”’ he said.

“‘IT was thinking just the same myself,’’ replied the
other.

‘““My name is Finch.”

‘‘Mine is Cabot. Delancy Cabot.”

George shook his head.

‘‘I don’t remember the name.”

‘‘ Yours is curiously familiar. I have heard it before,
but cannot think when.”

““Do you live in Greenwich Village ? ’’

‘‘Somewhat further up-town. And you?”

‘“‘T live in the apartment on top of this building here
at the back of us.’’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 205

A sudden light that seemed that of recognition came
into the other’s face. George observed it.

““Have you remembered where we met? ”’

“No, sir. No, indeed,’’ said the other hastily. ‘It
has entirely escaped me.’’ He took a sip of ice-water.
“TI recall, however, that you are an artist.”

“That’s right. You are not one, by any chance?”

““T am a poet.”’

““A poet?’’ George tried to conceal his somewhat
natural surprise. ‘‘ Where does your stuff appear
mostly ? ”’

“IT have published nothing as yet, Mr. Finch,’”’ replied
the other sadly.

“Tough luck. I have never sold a picture.”

“Too bad.”

They gazed at one another with kindly eyes, two
fellow-sufferers from the public’s lack of taste. Guiseppe
appeared, bearing deep-dish apple-pie in one hand, poulet
vo6tt in the other.

“‘ Guiseppe,’’ said George.

“Sare?”’

George bent his lips towards the waiter’s attentive ear.

““Bzz... Bzz... Bzz.. .”’ said George.

“Yes, sare. Very good, sare. In one moment, sare.”

George leaned back contentedly. Then it occurred to
him that he had been a little remiss. He was not actually
this red-eyed man’s host, but they had fraternized and
they both knew what it was to toil at their respective arts
without encouragement or appreciation.

‘‘ Perhaps you will join me? ’”’ he said.

** Join you, sir? ’’

‘“‘In a high-ball. Guiseppe has gone to get me one.”

‘“‘Indeed ? Is it possible to obtain alcoholic refresh-
ment in this restaurant ? ”’

‘You can always get it if they know you.”

“But surely it is against the law? ”’

“Ha, ha!’’ laughed George. He liked this pleasant,
whimsical fellow. ‘“‘ Ha, ha! Deuced good!”

14

206 THE SMALL BACHELOR

He looked at him with that genial bonhomie with which
one looks at a stranger in whom one has discovered a
sly sense ofhumour, And, looking, he suddenly congealed.

Stranger ?

‘Great Scott !’’ ejaculated George.

Sir’

‘‘ Nothing, nothing.”

Memory, though loitering by the way, had reached its
goal at last. This man was no stranger. George recol-
lected now where he had seen him before—on the roof of
the Sheridan, when the other, clad in policeman’s uniform,
had warned him of the deplorable past of Frederick Mul-
lett. The man was a cop, and under his very eyes, red
rims and all, he had just ordered a high-ball.

George gave a feverish laugh.

‘‘T was only kidding, of course,” he said.

‘* Kidding, Mr. Finch ? ”’

‘‘ When I said that you could get it here. You can't,
ofcourse. What Guiseppe is bringing me is a ginger-ale.”’

** Indeed ? ”’

‘And my name isn’t Finch,” babbled George. ‘‘It
—it is—er—Bnisskett. And I don’t live in that apartment
up there, I live in...”

He was aware of Guiseppe at his side. And Guiseppe
was being unspeakably furtive and conspiratorial with a
long glass and a coffee-pot. He looked like one of the
executive staff of the Black Hand plotting against the
public weal.

“Is that my ginger-ale?’’ twittered George. ‘“’ My
ginger-ale, is that what you've got there? ”’

“Yes, sare. Your ginger-ale. Your ginger-ale, Mr.
Feench,ha,ha,ha! You are vairy fonny gentleman,’ ’said
Guiseppe approvingly.

George could have kicked the man. If this was what
the modern Italian was like, no wonder the country had
had to have a dictatorship.

‘‘Take it away,’”’ he said, quivering. ‘‘I don’t want
{tin a coffee-pot.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 207

“We always sairve the whisky in the coffee-pot, Mr.
Feench. You know that.”

Across the table George was appalled by a sinister sight.
The man opposite was rising. Yards and yards of him
were beginning to uncoil, and on his face there was a strange
look of determination and menace.

“You're...”

George knew what the next word would have been. It
would have been the verb ‘pinched.’ But it was never
uttered. With a sudden frenzy, George Finch acted. He
was not normally a man of violence, but there are occasions
when violence and nothing but violence will meet the case.
There flashed through his mind a vision of what would
be, did he not act with promptitude and despatch. He
would be arrested, haled to jail, immured in a dungeon-
cell. And Molly would come back and find no one there
to welcome her and—what was even worse—no one to
marry her on the morrow.

George did not hesitate. Seizing the table-cloth, he
swept it off in a hideous whirl of apple-pie, ice water, bread,
potatoes, salad and poulet r6ts. He raised it on high, like
a retarius in the arena, and brought it down in an enveloping
mass on the policeman’s head. Interested cries arose on
all sides. The Purple Chicken was one of those jolly,
informal restaurants in which a spirit of clean Bohemian
fun is the prevailing note, but even in the Purple Chicken
occurrences like this were unusual and calculated to excite
remark. Four diners laughed happily, a fifth exclaimed
‘‘Hot pazazas!’’ and a sixth said ‘Well, would you
look at that!’

The New York police are not quitters. They may be
down, but they are never out, A clutching hand emerged
from the table-cloth and gripped George’s shoulder.
Another clutching hand was groping about not far from his
collar. The fingers of the first hand fastened their hold.

George was not in the frame of mind to be tolerant of
this sort of thing. He hit out and smote something solid.

‘Casta dimura salve e pura! ’At-a-boy! Soak him

208 THE SMALL BACHELOR

again,’ said Guiseppe, the waiter, convinced now that the
man in the table-cloth was one who had not the best inter-
ests of the Purple Chicken at heart.

George did so. The table-cloth became still more agi-
tated. The hand fell from his shoulder.

At this moment there was a confused noise of shouting
from the inner room, and all the lights went out.

George would not have had it otherwise. Darkness
just suited him. He leaped for the fire-escape and climbed
up it with as great a celerity as Mrs. Waddington, some
little time before, had used in climbing down. He reached
the roof and paused for an instant, listening to the tumult
below. Then, hearing through the din the sound of some-
body climbing, he ran to the sleeping-porch and dived
beneath the bed. To seek refuge in his apartment was,
he realized, useless. That would be the first place the
pursuer would draw.

He lay there, breathless. Footsteps came to the door
The door opened, and the light was switched on.

§ 2

In supposing that the person or persons whom he had
heard climbing up the fire-escape were in pursuit of him-
self, George Finch had made a pardonable error. Various
circumstances had combined to render his departure from
the Purple Chicken unobserved.

In the first place, just as Officer Garroway was on the
point of releasing his head from the folds of the table-
cloth, Guiseppe, with a loyalty to his employers which
it would be difficult to over-praise, hit him in the eye
with the coffee-pot. This had once more confused the
policeman’s outlook, and by the time he was able to
think clearly again the lights went out.

Simultaneously, the moon, naturally on George’s side
and anxious to do all that it could to help, went behind
a thick cloud and stayed there. No human eye, there-
fore, had witnessed the young man’s climb for life.

‘The persons whom he had heard on the fire-escape were

THE SMALL BACHELOR 209

a couple who, like himself, had no object in mind other
than a swift removal of themselves from the danger-zone.
And so far were they from being hostile to George that
each, had they seen him, would have urged him on and
wished him luck. For one of them was Madame Eulalie
and the other no less a man than J. Hamilton Beamish
in person.

Hamilton Beamish, escorting his bride-to-be, had arrived
at the Purple Chicken a few minutes after George, and,
like George, had found the place crowded to its last table.
But unlike George, he had not meekly accepted this situa-
tion as unalterable. Exerting the full force of his majestic
personality, he had caused an extra table to appear, to
be set, and to be placed in the fairway at the spot where
the indoor restaurant joined the outdoor annex.

It was a position which at first had seemed to have
drawbacks. The waiters who passed at frequent intervals
were compelled to bump into Mr. Beamish’s chair, which
is always unpleasant when one is trying to talk to the girl
one loves, But the time was to arrive when its drawbacks
were lost sight of in the contemplation of its strategic
advantages. At the moment when the raid may be said
to have formally opened, Hamilton Beamish was helping
the girl of his heart to what the management had assured
him was champagne. He was interrupted in this kindly
action by a large hand placed heavily on his shoulder and
a gruff voice which informed him that he was under arrest.

Whether Hamilton Beamish would have pursued George
Finch’s spirited policy of enveloping the man in the table-
cloth and thereafter plugging him in the eye, will never
be known: for the necessity for such a procedure was
removed by the sudden extinction of the lights: and it
was at this point that the advantage of being in that
particular spot became apparent.

From the table to the fire-escape was but a few steps:
and Hamilton Beamish, seizing his fiancée by the hand,
dragged her thither and, placing her foot on the lowest
step, gave her an upward boost which left no room for

210 THE SMALL BACHELOR

misapprehension. A moment later, Madame Eulalie was
hurrying roofwards, with Hamilton Beamish in close
attendance.

They stood together at the end of their journey, looking
down. The lights of the Purple Chicken were still out,
and from the darkness there rose a confused noise indica-
tive of certain persons unknown being rather rough with
certain other persons unknown. It seemed to Madame
Eulalie that she and her mate were well out of it, and
she said so.

‘‘T never realized before what a splendid man you were
to have by one in an emergency, Jimmy dear,”’ she said.
*‘ Anything slicker than the way you scooped us out of
that place I never saw. You must have had lots and
lots of practice.”’

Hamilton Beamish was passing a handkerchief over
his dome-like forehead. The night was warm, and the
going had been fast

‘IT shall never forgive myself,’’ he said, ‘‘ for exposing
you to such an experience.”’

*‘Oh, but I enjoyed it.”

‘Well, all has ended well, thank goodness .. .”’

*‘ But has it ?’’ interrupted Madame Eulalie.

‘‘What do you mean? ”’

She pointed downwards.

‘“‘ There’s somebody coming up!”

“You're right.”’

‘‘What shall we do? Go out by the stairs? ”’

Hamilton Beamish shook his head.

“In all probability they will be guarding the entrance.”

** Then what? ”’

It is at moments like these that the big brain really
tells. An ordinary man might have been non-plussed.
Certainly, he would have had to waste priceless moments
in thought. Hamilton Beamish, with one flash of his giant
mind, had the problem neatly solved in four and a quarter

seconds.
He took his bride-to-be by the arm and turned her round,

THE SMALL BACHELOR 211

** Look.”’
“Where ? ”?
** There | ”’
** Which ? ”
** That.”

“What ?’’ Bewilderment was limned upon the girl’s
fair face. ‘‘I don’t understand. What do you want me
to specially look at? ’”’

“At what do you want me specially to look,” corrected
Hamilton Beamish mechanically. He drew her across
the roof. ‘“‘ You see that summer-house thing : ? It is
George Finch’s open-air aaa porch. Go in, shut the
door, switch on the light .

“But .

id and remove a portion of your clothes.”
os What [a

“‘And if anybody comes tell him that George Finch
rented you the apartment and that you are dressing to go
out to dinner. I, meanwhile, will go down to my apart-
ment and will come up in a few minutes to see if you are
ready to be taken out to dine.’’ Pardonable pride so
overcame Hamilton Beamish that he discarded the Eng-
lish Pure and relapsed into the argot of the proletariat.
‘Is that a cracker-jack ?’’ he demanded with gleaming
eyes. “‘Is that a wam? Am I the bozo with the big
bean or am I not?”

The girl eyed him worshippingly. One of the consola-
tions which we men of intellect have is that, when things
come to a crisis, what captures the female heart is brains.
Women may permit themselves in times of peace to stray
after Sheiks and look languishingly at lizards whose only
claim to admiration is that they can do the first three
steps of the Charleston: but let matters go wrong; let
some sudden peril threaten; and who then is the king
pippin, who the main squeeze? The man with the eight
and a quarter hat.

“Jimmy,” she cried, ‘‘it’s the goods!”

‘“* Exactly.”

212 THE SMALL BACHELOR

“It’s a life-saver.”’

‘Precisely. Be quick, then. There is no time to
waste.”

And so it came about that George Finch, nestling beneath
the bed, received a shock which, inured though he should
have been to shocks by now, seemed to him to turn every
hair on his head instantaneously grey.

§ 3

The first thing that impressed itself on George Finch’s
consciousness, after his eyes had grown accustomed to the
light, wasanankle. It wasclad ina stocking of diaphanous
silk, and was joined almost immediately by another ankle,
similarly clad. For an appreciable time these ankles,
though slender, bulked so large in George’s world that they
may be said to have filled his whole horizon. Then they
disappeared.

A moment before this happened, George, shrinking
modestly against the wall, would have said that nothing
could have pleased him better than to have these ankles
disappear. Nevertheless, when they did so, it was all
he could do to keep himself from uttering a stricken
cry. For the reason they disappeared was that at this
moment a dress of some filmy material fell over them,
hiding them from view.

It was a dress that had the appearance of having been
cut by fairy scissors out of moonbeams and star-dust :
and in a shop-window George would have admired it.
But seeing it in a shop-window and seeing it bunched like
a prismatic foam on the floor of this bedroom were two
separate and distinct things: and so warmly did George
Finch blush that he felt as if his face must be singeing
the carpet. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth.
Was this, he asked himself, the end or but a beginning ?

“Yes? ’’ said a voice suddenly. And George’s head,
jerking convulsively, seemed for an instant to have parted
company with a loosely-attached neck.

The voice had spoken, he divined as soon as the power

THE SMALL BACHELOR 218

of thought returned to him, in response to a sharp and
authoritative knock on the door, delivered by some hard
instrument which sounded like a policeman’s night-stick :
and there followed immediately upon this knock sharp and
authoritative words.

““Open up there!”

The possessor of the ankles was plainly a girl of spirit.

“‘T won’t,”’ she said. ‘‘ I’m dressing.’

“Who are you? ”’

“Who are you ?”’

** Never mind who I am.”

** Well, never mind who J am, then!”’

There was a pause. It seemed to George, judging the
matter dispassionately, that the ankles had had slightly
the better of the exchanges to date.

“What are you doing in there ? ’’ asked the male duettist,
approaching the thing from another angle.

‘“‘ I’m dressing, I keep telling you.”’

There was another pause. And then into this tense
debate there entered a third party.

‘“What’s all this ? ’’ said the new-comer sharply.

George recognized the voice of his old friend Hamilton
Beamish.

‘‘Garroway,” said Hamilton Beamish, with an annoyed
severity, ‘‘ what the devil are you doing, hanging about
outside this lady’s door? Upon my soul,”’ proceeded Mr.
Beamish warmly, ‘I’m beginning to wonder what the
duties of the New York constabulary are. Their life seems
to consist of an endless leisure, which they employ in roam-
ing about and annoying women. Are you aware that the
lady inside there is my fiancée and that she is dressing in
order to dine with me at a restaurant? ”’

Officer Garroway, as always, cringed before the superior
intelligence.

‘‘T am extremely sorry, Mr. Beamish.”

‘*So you ought to be. What are you doing here, any-
way?”

‘There has been some little trouble down below on

214 THE SMALL BACHELOR

the premises of the Purple Chicken, and I was violently
assaulted by Mr. Finch. I followed him up here on the
fire-escape ...”

“Mr. Finch? You are drivelling, Garroway. Mr.
Finch is on his wedding-trip. He very kindly lent this
lady his apartment during his absence.”’

‘But, Mr. Beamish, I was talking to him only just now.
We sat at the same table.”’

‘ Absurd | ”’

The dress had disappeared from George’s range of vision
now, and he heard the door open.

‘What does this man want, Jimmy?”

** A doctor, apparently,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘“‘ He
says he met George Finch just now.”’

‘‘ But George is miles away.”’

“Precisely. Are you ready, darling? Then we will
go off and have some dinner. What you need, Garroway,
is a bromo-seltzer. Come down to my apartment and
I will mix you one. Having taken it, I would recommend
you to lie down quietly on the sofa and rest awhile. I
think you must have been over-exercising your brain,
writing that poem of yours. Who blacked your eye? ”’

‘1 wish I knew,” said Officer Garroway wistfully. ‘“‘I
received the injury during the fracas at the Purple Chicken.
There was a table-cloth over my head at the moment,
and I was unable to ascertain the identity of my assailant.
If, and when, I find him I shall soak him so hard it'll
jar his grandchildren.”

“A table-cloth ? ”’

“Yes, Mr. Beamish. And while I was endeavouring to
extricate myself from its folds, somebody hit me in the
eye with a coffee-pot.”’

“How do you know it was a coffee-pot ? ’’

‘“‘I found it lying beside me when I emerged.”

‘‘Ah! Well,” said Hamilton Beamish, summing up,
“I hope that this will be a lesson to you not to go into
places like the Purple Chicken. You are lucky to have
escaped so lightly. You might have had to eat their

THE SMALL BACHELOR 215

cheese, Well, come along, Garroway, and we will see
what we can do for you.’’

§ 4

George stayed where he was. If he had known of a
better ’ole, he would have gone toit: but hedidnot. He
would have been the last person to pretend that it was
comfortable lying underneath this bed with fluff tickling
his nose and a draught playing about his left ear: but
there seemed in the circumstances nothing else to do.
To a man unable to fly there were only two modes of exit
from this roof,—he could climb down the fire-escape,
probably into the very arms of the constabulary, or he
could try to sneak down the stairs, and most likely run
Straight into the vengeful Garroway. True, Hamilton
Beamish had recommended the policeman after drinking
his bromo-seltzer to lie down on the sofa, but who knew
if he would follow the advice? Possibly he was even now
patrolling the staircase: and George, recalling the man’s
physique and remembering the bitterness with which he
had spoken of his late assailant, decided that the risk was
too great to be taken. Numerous as were the defects of
his little niche beneath the bed, considered as a spot to
spend a happy evening, it was a good place to be for a man
in his delicate position. So he dug himself in and tried to
while away the time by thinking.

He thought of many things. He thought of his youth
in East Gilead, of his manhood in New York. He thought
of Molly and how much he loved her; of Mrs. Wadding-
ton and what a blot she was on the great scheme of things ;
of Hamilton Beamish and his off-hand way of dealing with
policemen. He thought of Officer Garroway and his night-
stick; of Guiseppe and his coffee-pot; of the Reverend
Gideon Voules and his white socks. He even thought
of Sigsbee H. Waddington.

Now, when a man is so hard put to it for mental occu-
pation that he has to fall back on Sigsbee H. Waddington
as a topic of thought, he is nearing the end of his resour¢es;

216 THE SMALL BACHELOR

and it was possibly with a kindly appreciation of this
fact that Fate now supplied something else to occupy
George’s mind. Musing idly on Sigsbee H. and wonder-
ing how he got that way, George became suddenly aware
of approaching footsteps.

He curled himself up into a ball, and his ears stood
straight up like a greyhound’s. Yes, footsteps. And,
what was more, they seemed to be making straight for
the sleeping-porch.

A wave of self-pity flooded over George Finch. Why
should he be so ill-used? He asked so little of Life,
—merely to be allowed to lie quietly under a bed and inhale
fluff: and what happened? Nothing but interruptions.
Nothing but boots, boots, boots, boots, marching up and
down again, as Kipling has so well put it. Ever since
he had found his present hiding-place, the world had seemed
to become one grey inferno of footsteps. It was wrong
and unjust.

The only thing that could possibly be said in extenuation
of the present footsteps was that they sounded too light
to be those of any New York policeman. They had
approached now to the very door. Indeed, they seemed
to him to have stopped actually inside the room.

He was right in this conjecture. The switch clicked.
Light jumped at him like a living thing. And when he
opened his eyes he found himself looking at a pair of ankles
clad in stockings of diaphanous silk.

The door closed. And Mrs. Waddington, who had just
reached the top of the fire-escape, charged across the roof
and, putting her ear to the keyhole, stood listening intently.
Things, felt Mrs. Waddington, were beginning to /aove.

§ 5

For a moment, all that George Finch felt as he glared
out at this latest visitation was a weak resentment at the
oafishness of Fate in using the same method for his tor-
menting that it had used so short a while before. Fate,
he considered, was behaving childishly, and ought to

THE SMALL BACHELOR 217

changeitsact. This ankle business might have been funny
enough once: but, overdone, it became tedious.

Then to indignation there succeeded relief. The remarks
of Hamilton Beamish in his conversation with the police-
man had made it clear that the possessor of the ankles
had been his old friend May Stubbs of East Gilead, Idaho :
and, seeing ankles once again, George naturally assumed
that they were attached, as before, to Miss Stubbs, and
that the reason for her return was that she had come back
to fetch something—some powder-puff, for example, or a
lipstick—which in the excitement of the recent altercation
she had forgotten to take along with her.

This, of course, altered the whole position of affairs.
What it amounted to was that, instead of a new enemy
he had found an ally. A broad-minded girl like May
would understand at once the motives which had led him
to hide under the bed and would sympathize with them.
He could employ her, it occurred to him, as a scout, to see
if the staircase was nowclear. In short, this latest inter-
ruption of his reverie, so far from being a disaster, was the
very best thing that could have happened.

Sneezing heartily, for he had got a piece of fluff up his
nose, George rolled out from under the bed: and, scram-
bling to his feet with a jolly laugh, found himself gazing
into the bulging eyes of a complete stranger.

That, at least, was how the girl impressed him in the
first instant of their meeting. But gradually, as he stared
at her, there crept into his mind the belief that somewhere
and at some time he had seen her before. But where?
And when ?

The girl continued to gape at him. She was small and
pretty, with vivid black eyes and a mouth which, if it had
not been hanging open at the moment like that of a fish,
would have been remarkably attractive. Silence reigned
in the sleeping-porch: and Mrs. Waddington, straining
her ears outside, was beginning to think that George
could not be in this lair and that a further vigil was before
her, when suddenly voices began to speak. What they

218 THE SMALL BACHELOR

were saying, she was unable to hear, for the door was
stoutly built: but beyond a doubt one of them was
George’s. Mrs. Waddington crept away, well content.
Her suspicions had been confirmed, and now it remained
only to decide what it was best to do about it. She moved
into the shadow of the water-tank, and there remained
for a space in deep thought.

Inside the sleeping-porch, the girl, her eyes fixed on
George, had begun to shrink back. At about the third
shrink she bumped into the wall, and the shock seemed
to restore her power of speech.

‘What are you doing in my bedroom ?”’ she cried.

The question had the effect of substituting for the
embarrassment which had been gripping George a sudden
bubbling fury. This, he felt, was too much. Circum-
stances had conspired that night to turn this sleeping-porch
into a sort of meeting-place of the nations, but he was
darned if he was going to have his visitors looking on the
room as their own.

‘‘What do you mean, your bedroom ?’’ he demanded
hotly. ‘‘ Who are you?”

“I’m Mrs, Mullett.”

‘“Who?”

‘‘Mrs. Frederick Mullett.”

Mrs. Waddington had formed her plan of action. What
she needed, she perceived, was a witness to come with her
to this den of evil and add his testimony in support of hers.
If only Lord Hunstanton had been present, as he should
have been, she would have needed to look no further. But
Lord Hunstanton was somewhere out in the great city,
filling his ignoble tummy with food. Whom, then, could
she enrol as a deputy? The question answered itself.
Ferris was the man. He was ready to hand and could
be fetched without delay.

Mrs. Waddington made for the stairs.

“Mrs. Mullett ?’’ said George. ‘‘ What do you mean?
Mullett’s not married.”’

THE SMALL BACHELOR 219

“Yes, he is We were married this morning.”

‘Where is he? ”’

‘‘ T left him down below, finishing a cigar. He said we’d
be all alone up here, nesting like two little birds in a tree
top.”

George laughed a brassy, sardonic laugh.

“If Mullett thought anyone could ever be alone for
five minutes up here, he’s an optimist. And what right
has Mullett to go nesting like a little bird in my apart-
ment? ”’

‘Ts this your apartment ? ””

“Yes, it is.’

“Oh! Oh!”

“Stopit! Don’t make that noise. There are policemen
about.”

‘* Policemen | ”’

€é Yes.”’

Tears suddenly filled the eyes that looked into his.
Two small hands clasped themselves in a passionate gesture
of appeal.

‘‘Don’t turn me over to the bulls, mister! I only did
it for ma’s sake. If you was out of work and starvin’
and you had to sit and watch your poor old ma bendin’
over the wash-tub .. .”

‘‘T haven’t got a poor old ma,” said George curtly.
‘‘And what on earth do you think you're talking
about ?”’

He stopped suddenly, speech wiped from his lips by a
stunning discovery. The girl had unclasped her hands,
and now she flung them out before her: and the gesture
was all that George’s memory needed to spur it to the
highest efficiency. For unconsciously Fanny Mullett
had assumed the exact attitude which had lent such
dramatic force to her entrance into the dining-room of
Mrs. Waddington’s house at Hempstead earlier in the day.
The moment he saw those outstretched arms, George
remembered where he had met this girl before: and, for-
getting everything else, forgetting that he was trapped

?

220 THE SMALL BACHELOR

on a roof with a justly exasperated policeman guarding
the only convenient exit, he uttered a short, sharp bark
of exultation.

““Youl’’ he cried. ‘‘ Give me that necklace.”’

‘* What necklace ? ”’

‘‘The one you stole at Hempstead this afternoon.”

The girl drew herself up haughtily.

““Do you dare to say I stole a necklace? ”’

‘** Yes, I do.”’

“Oh? And do you know what I’ll do if you bring a
charge like that against me? Tl...”

She broke off. A discreet tap had sounded on the
door.

‘“* Honey |”

Fanny looked at George. George looked at Fanny.

““My husband!’’ whispered Fanny.

George was in no mood to be intimidated by a mere
Mullett. He strode to the door.

‘“‘ Honey !”’

George flung the door open.

“Honey !”’

‘Well, Mullett ? ”’

The valet fell back a pace, his eyes widening. He
passed the tip of his tongue over his lips.

‘“* A wasp in the beehive!”’ cried Mullett.

“Don’t be an idiot,’’ said George.

Mullett was gazing at him in the manner of one stricken
to the core.

‘“‘Isn’t your own bridal-trip enough for you, Mr. Finch,”
he said reproachfully, “‘ that you’ve got to come butting
in on mine?”

“Don’t be a fool, My wedding was temporarily post-
poned.”’

‘“‘T see. And misery loves company, so you start in
breaking up my home.”’

‘‘Nothing of the kind.”

“Tf I had known that you were on the premises, Mr.
Finch,” said Mullett with dignity, ““I would not have

THE SMALL BACHELOR 221

taken the liberty of making use of your domicile. Come,
Fanny, we will go to a hotel.”

“Will you ? ’’ said George unpleasantly. ‘‘ Let me tell
you there’s a little matter to be settled before you start
going to any hotel. Perhaps you are not aware that your
wife is in possession of a valuable necklace belonging to
the lady who, if it hadn’t been for her, would now be Mrs.
George Finch ? ”’

Mullett clapped a hand to his forehead.

“*A necklace | ”’

‘** It’s a lie,”’ cried his bride.

Mullett shook his head sadly. He was putting two and
two together.

‘‘ When did this occur, Mr. Finch ? ”’

‘‘This afternoon, down at Hempstead.”

“Don’t you listen to him, Freddy. He’s dippy.”

‘‘ What precisely happened, Mr. Finch? ”

‘“This woman suddenly burst into the room where
everybody was and pretended that I had made love to
her and deserted her. Then she fell on the table where the
wedding-presents were and pretended to faint. And then
she dashed out, and some time afterwards it was discovered
that the necklace had gone. And don’t,”’ he added,
turning to the accused, ‘‘ say that you only did it for your
poor old ma’s sake, because I’ve had a lot to put up with
to-day, and that will be just too much.”

Mr. Mullett clicked his tongue with a sort of sorrowful
pride. Girls will be girls, Frederick Mullett seemed to
say, but how few girls could be as clever as his little
wife.

‘‘Give Mr. Finch his necklace, pettie,’’ he said mildly

‘‘T haven’t got any necklace.”’

‘* Give it to him, dearie, just like Freddie says, or there’lJ
only be unpleasantness.’’

‘‘Unpleasantness,’’ said George, breathing hard, ‘“‘ is
right | ’’

‘‘Tt was a beautiful bit of work, honey, and there isn’t
another girl in New York that could have thought it out;

15

222 THE SMALL BACHELOR

let alone gone and got away with it. Even Mr. Finch
will admit it was a beautiful bit of work.”

“If you want Mr. Finch’s opinion . . .’’ began George
heatedly.

‘* But we've done with all that sort of thing now, haven’t
we, pettie? Give him his necklace, honey.”

Mrs. Mullett’s black eyes snapped. She twisted her
pretty fingers irresolutely.

“Take your old necklace,’”’ she said.

George caught it as it fell.

“Thanks,” he said, and put it in his pocket.

“And now, Mr. Finch,” said Mullett suavely, ‘‘ I think
we will say good night. My little girl here has had a
tiring day and ought to be turning in.”

George hurried across the roof to his apartment. What-
ever the risk of leaving the safety of the sleeping-porch, it
must be ignored. It was imperative that he telephone
to Molly and inform her of what had happened.

He was pulling the French window open when he heard
his name called: and perceived Mullett hurrying towards
him from the door that led to the stairs.

‘* Just one moment, Mr. Finch.”’

“What is it? I have a most important telephone-call
to make.”

“‘T thought you would be glad to have this, sir.’’

With something of the air of a conjurer who, to amuse
the children, produces two rabbits and the grand old flag
from inside a borrowed top-hat, Mullett unclasped his
fingers.

‘‘ Your necklace, sir.’

George’s hand flew to his pocket and came away empty.

“Good heavens! How.. ?”’

“‘ My little girl,’ explained Mullett with a proud and
tender look in his eyes. ‘‘ She snitched it off you, sir, as
we were going out. I was able, however, to persuade
her to give it up again. I reminded her that we had put
all that sort of thing behind us now. I asked her how she

THE SMALL BACHELOR 228

could expect to be happy on our duck-farm if she had a
thing like that on her mind, and she saw it almost at once.
She’s a very reasonable girl, sir, when tactfully approached
by the voice of love.”

George drew a deep breath. He replaced the necklace in
his inside breast-pocket, buttoned his coat and drew
away a step or two.

“‘Are you going to let that woman loose on a duck-
farm, Mullett ? ”’

“Yes, sir. We are taking a little place in the neigh-
bourhood of Speonk.’’

** She’ll have the tail-feathers off every bird on the pre
mises before the end of the first week.’’

Mullett bowed his appreciation of the compliment.

‘‘And they wouldn’t know they’d lost them, sir,’”’ he
agreed. ‘‘ There’s never been anyone in the profession
fit to be reckoned in the same class with my little girl.
But all that sort of thing is over now, sir. She is definitely
retiring from business,—except for an occasional visit
to the department stores during bargain-sales, A girl
must have her bit of finery. Good night, sir.”

*‘Good night,’’ said George.

He took out the necklace, examined it carefully, replaced
it in his pocket, buttoned his coat once more, and went
into the apartment to telephone to Molly.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
§r

RS. WADDINGTON had once read a story in
which a series of emotions including fear, horror,
amazement, consternation and a sickly dismay

were described as ‘chasing one another’ across the face
of a dastardly person at the moment of realization that
his villainy had been discovered past concealment: and
it was with the expectation of watching a similar parade
on the moon-like countenance of Ferris, the butler, that
she pressed the bell outside the door of the apartment of
Mr. Lancelot Biffen on the ninth floor.

She was disappointed. Ferris, as he appeared in the
doorway in answer to her ring, lacked a little of his cus-
tomary portentous dignity, but that was only because
we authors, after a gruelling bout at the desk, are always
apt to look a shade frazzled. The butler’s hair was dis-
ordered where he had plucked at it in the agony of com-
position, and there was more ink on the tip of his nose
than would have been there on a more formal occasion :
but otherwise he was in pretty good shape, and he did
not even start on perceiving the identity of his visitor.

‘“‘ Mr. Biffen is not at home, madam,” said Ferris equably.

‘‘I do not wish to see Mr. Biffen.’” Mrs. Waddington
swelled with justifiable wrath. ‘‘ Ferris,’’ she said, ‘‘I
know all!”’

, Indeed, madam?”

“You have no sick relative,”” proceeded Mrs. Wadding-
ton: though her tone suggested the opinion that anyone
related to him had good reason to be sick. ‘‘ You are
here because you are writing a scurrilous report of what
happened this afternoon at my house for a gutter rag
called ‘ Town Gossip.’ ”’

224

THE SMALL BACHELOR 225

** With which is incorporated ‘ Broadway Whispers ’ and
‘Times Square Tattle,’’’ murmured the butler, absently.

‘¢ You ought to be ashamed of yourself | ”’

Ferris raised his eyebrows.

“‘T venture to take issue with you, madam. The pro-
fession of journalism is an honourable one. Many very
estimable men have written for the Press. Horace
Greeley,’’ said Ferris, specifying. ‘‘ Delane.. .”

‘Bah 1”

‘** Madam ? ”’

‘‘ But we will go into that later.”

‘‘Very good, madam.,”’

‘“‘Meanwhile, I wish you to accompany me to the
roof...”

‘‘I fear I must respectfully decline, madam. I have
not climbed since I was a small lad.”’

“You can walk up a flight of stairs, can’t you? ”’

“‘Oh, stairs? Decidedly, madam. I will be at your
disposal in a few moments.”’

‘‘T wish you to accompany me now.”

The butler shook his head.

“If I might excuse myself, madam. I am engaged on
the concluding passages of the article to which you alluded
just now, and I am anxious to complete it before Mr.
Biffen’s return.”’

Mrs. Waddington caused the eye before which Sigsbee
H. had so often curled up and crackled like a burnt feather
to blaze imperiously upon the butler. He met it with the
easy aplomb of one who in his time has looked at dukes
and made them fee] that their trousers were bagging at the
knees.

‘Would you care to step inside and wait, madam? ”’

Mrs. Waddington was reluctantly obliged to realize
that she was quelled. She had shot her bolt. A cyclone
might shake this man, but not the human eye.

‘“‘T will not step inside.”’

‘‘Very good, madam. For what reason do you desire
me to accompany you to the roof?”

226 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘‘I want you to—to look at something.”

‘‘If it is the view, madam, I should mention that I
have already visited the top of the Woolworth Building.”

“It is not the view. I wish you to look at a man who
is living in open sin.”

“Very good, madam.’”’ There was no surprise in
Ferris’s manner, only a courteous suggestion that he was
always glad to look at men living in open sin. ‘‘ I will be
at your disposal in a few minutes.”

He closed the door gently, and Mrs. Waddington, full
of the coward rage which dares to burn but does not dare
to blaze, abandoned her intention of kicking in a panel
and stood on the landing, heaving gently. And presently
there was borne up to her from the lower levels a cheerful
sound of whistling.

Lord Hunstanton came into view.

“* Hullo-ullo-ullo! ’’ said Lord Hunstanton exuberantly.
‘* Here I am, here I am, here I am!’’—meaning, of course,
that there he was.

A striking change had taken place in the man’s appear-
ance since Mrs. Waddington had last seen him. He now
wore the care-free and debonair expression of one who
has dined and dined well. The sparkle in his eye spoke
of clear soup, the smile on his lips was eloquent of roast
duck and green peas, To Mrs. Waddington, who had
not broken bread since lunch-time, he seemed the most
repellent object on which she had ever gazed.

‘‘I trust you have had a good dinner,” she said icily.

His lordship’s sunny smile broadened, and a dreamy
look came into his eyes.

‘‘ Absolutely !”’ he replied. ‘“‘I started with a spruce
spoonful of Julienne and passed on by way of a breezy
half-lobster on the shell to about as upstanding a young
Long Island duckling as I have ever bitten.”

‘‘Be quiet!’’ said Mrs. Waddington, shaken to the
core. The man’s conversation seemed to her utterly re-
volting.

“Finishing up with .. .”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 227

“Will you be quiet! I have no desire to hear the details
of your repast.”’

“Oh, sorry! I thought you had.”

“You have been away long enough to have eaten half-
a-dozen dinners. However, as it happens, you are not too
late. I have something to show you.”

“That’s good. Moral turpitude pretty strong on the
wing, eh? ”’

““A few moments ago,” said Mrs. Waddington, leading
the way to the roof, “‘ I observed a young woman enter
what appears to be some kind of outdoor sleeping-porch
attached to George Finch’s apartment, and immediately
afterwards I heard her voice in conversation with George
Finch within.”

“‘Turpy,’’ said his lordship, shaking his head reprovingly.
“Very turpy.”’

“‘I came down to fetch Ferris, my butler, as a witness,
but fortunately you have returned in time. Though why
you were not back half an hour ago I cannot understand.”

‘“‘But I was telling you. I dallied with a mouthful of
Julienne...”

‘Be quiet!”

Lord Hunstanton followed her, puzzled. He could not
understand what seemed to him a morbid distaste on
his companion’s part to touch on the topic of food. They
came out on the roof, and Mrs. Waddington, raising a
silent and beckoning finger, moved on tip-toe towards the
sleeping-porch.

‘‘ Now what ? ”’ inquired his lordship, they paused before
the door.

Mrs Waddington rapped upon the panel

‘““ George Finch | ”’

Complete silence followed the words.

‘‘George Finch !”’

‘George Finch !’’ echoed his lordship, conscious of his
responsibilities as a chorus.

‘‘ Finch |’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

“* George !”’ cried Lord Hunstanton.

$28 THE SMALL BACHELOR

Mrs, Waddington flung open the door. All was darkness
within. She switched on the light. The room was empty.

“Well! ’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

‘Perhaps they’re under the bed.”

*‘Go and look.”

‘*But suppose he bites at me.”

Nothing is truer than that the secret of all successful
operations consists in the overlooking of no eventuality,
but it was plain that Mrs. Waddington considered that
in this instance her ally was carrying caution too far.
She turned on him with a snort of annoyance: and, having
turned, remained staring frozenly at something that had
suddenly manifested itself in his lordship’s rear.

This something was a long, stringy policeman: and,
though Mrs. Waddington had met this policeman only
once in her life, the circumstances of that meeting had been
such that the memory of him had lingered. She recog-
nized him immediately: and, strong woman though she
was, wilted like a snail that has just received a handful
of salt between the eyes.

‘‘What’s up?” inquired Lord Hunstanton. He, too,
turned. ‘‘Oh, what ho! the constabulary!”

Officer Garroway was gazing at Mrs. Waddington with
an eye from which one of New York’s Bohemian evenings
had wiped every trace of its customary mildness. So
intense, indeed, was the malevolence of its gleam that,
if there had been two such eyes boring into hers, it is pro-
bable that Mrs. Waddington would have swooned. For-
tunately, the other was covered with a piece of raw steak
and a bandage, and so was out of action.

‘‘Ah!’’ said Officer Garroway.

There is little in the word ‘Ah’ when you write it
down and take a look at it to suggest that under certain
conditions it can be one of the most sinister words in the
language. But hear it spoken by a policeman in whose
face you have recently thrown pepper, and you will be
surprised. To Mrs. Waddington, as she shrank back into
the sleeping-porch, it seemed a sort of combination of an

THE SMALL BACHELOR 229

Indian war-whoop, the Last Trump, and the howl of a
pursuing wolf-pack. Her knees weakened beneath her, and
she collapsed on the bed.

““Copped you, have I?” proceeded the policeman.

The question was plainly a rhetorical one, for he did
not pause fora reply. He adjusted the bandage that held
the steak, and continued his remarks.

“* You're pinched ! ”’

It seemed to Lord Hunstanton that all this was very
odd and irregular.

“I say, look here, you know, what I mean to say
is...”

“*So are you,” said Officer Garroway. ‘‘ You seem to
be in it, too. You're both pinched. And start any funny
business,’”’ concluded the constable, swinging his night-
stick in a ham-like fist, ‘‘ and I’U bend this over your nut.
Get me? ”’

There followed one of those pauses which so often
punctuate the conversation of comparative strangers.
Officer Garroway seemed to have said his say. Mrs. Wad-
dington had no observations to make. And, though Lord
Hunstanton would have liked to put a question or two,
the spectacle of that oscillating night-stick had the effect
of driving the words out of his head. It was the sort
of night-stick that gave one a throbbing feeling about the
temples merely to look at it. He swallowed feebly, but
made no remark,

And then from somewhere below there sounded the
voice of one who cried ‘Beamish! Hey, Beamish!’ It
was the voice of Sigsbee H. Waddington.

§ 2
Nothing is more annoying to the reader of a chronicle
like this than to have somebody suddenly popping up in
some given spot and to find that the historian does not
propose to offer any explanation as to how he got there. A
conscientious recorder should explain the exits and the
entrances of even so insignificant a specimen of the race

280 THE SMALL BACHELOR

as Sigsbee H. Waddington: and the present scribe must
now take time off in order to do so.

Sigsbee H., it may be remembered, had started out to
search through New York for a policeman named Gallag-
her: and New York had given him of its abundance.
It had provided for Mr. Waddington’s inspection a perfect
wealth of Gallaghers: but, owing to the fact that what
he really wished to meet was not a Gallagher but a Gar-
roway, nothing in the nature of solid success had rewarded
his efforts. He had seen tall Gallaghers and small Gallag-
hers, thin Gallaghers and stout Gallaghers, a cross-eyed
Gallagher, a pimpled Gallagher, a Gallagher with red
hair, a Gallagher with a broken nose, two Gallaghers who
looked like bad dreams, and a final supreme Gallagher
who looked like nothing on earth. But he had not found
the man to whom he had sold the stock of the Finer and
Better Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal.

Many men in such a position would have given up the
struggle. Sigsbee H. Waddington did. The last Gallagher
had been on duty in the neighbourhood of Bleecker Street :
and Mr. Waddington, turning into Washington Square,
tottered to a bench and sagged down on it.

For some moments, the ecstatic relief of resting his
feet occupied his mind to the exclusion of everything else.
Then there occurred to him a thought which, had it arrived
earlier in the day, would have saved him a considerable
output of energy. He suddenly recollected that he had
met the missing policeman at the apartment of Hamilton
Beamish: and, pursuing this train of thought to its logical
conclusion, decided that Hamilton Beamish was the one
person who would be able to give him information as to
the man’s whereabouts.

No tonic, however popular and widely-advertised,
could have had so instantly revivifying an effect. The
difference between Mr. Waddington before taking and after
taking this inspiration was almost magical. An instant
before, he had been lying back on the bench in a used-up
attitude which would have convinced any observer that

THE SMALL BACHELOR 281

the only thing to do with a man in such a stage of exhausted
dejection was to notify the City authorities and have
him swept up and deposited in the incinerator with the
rest of the local garbage. But now, casting off despair
like a cloak, he sprang from his seat and was across the
Square and heading for the Sheridan before such an
observer would have had time to say ‘What ho!’

Not even the fact that the elevator was not running
could check his exhilarated progress. He skimmed up
the stairs to Hamilton Beamish’s door like a squirrel.

“Beamish !’’ he cried. ‘‘ Hey, Beamish !”’

Up on the roof, Officer Garroway started as a war-horse
at the sound of the bugle. He knew that voice. And,
if it should seem remarkable that he should have remem-
bered it after so many days, having been in conversation
with it but once, the explanation is that Mr. Waddington’s
voice had certain tonal qualities that rendered it individual
and distinctive. You might mistake it for a squeaking
file, but you could not mistake it for the voice of anybody
but Sigsbee H. Waddington.

‘“‘Gosh | ’’ said Officer Garroway, shaking like an aspen.

The voice had had its effect also on Mrs. Waddington.
She started up as if the bed on which she sat had become
suddenly incandescent.

‘* Siddown | ’’ said Officer Garroway.

Mrs. Waddington sat down.

‘‘ My dear old constable,’’ began Lord Hunstanton.

‘‘Shut up!”’ said Officer Garroway.

Lord Hunstanton shut up.

‘“‘Gosh !’’ said Officer Garroway once more.

He eyed his prisoners in an agony of indecision. He
was in the unfortunate position of wanting to be in two
places at once. To rush down the stairs and accost the
man who had sold him that stock would mean that he
would have to leave these two birds, with the result that
they would undoubtedly escape. And that they should
escape was the last thing in the world that Officer Gar-

282 THE SMALL BACHELOR

roway desired. These two represented the most important
capture he had made since he had joined the Force, The
female bird was a detected burglar and assaulter of the
police, and he rather fancied that, when he took him to
headquarters and looked him up in the Rogues’ Gallery,
the male bird would prove to be Willie the Dude, wanted
in Syracuse for slipping the snide. To land them in the
coop meant promotion.

On the other hand, to go down and get his fingers nicely
placed about the throat of the man downstairs meant
that he would get his three hundred dollars back.

What to do? What to do?

““QOh, gosh! Oh, Gee!” sighed Officer Garroway.

A measured footstep made itself heard. There came
into his range of vision an ambassadorial-looking man
with a swelling waistcoat and a spot of ink on his nose.
And, seeing him, the policeman uttered a cry of elation.

§ 3

“‘Hey!”’’ said Officer Garroway.

“Sir? ’’ said the new-comer.

“You're a deputy.”

‘‘No, sir. I am a butler.”

‘Say, Be-eeeee-mish !’’ bleated the voice below.

It roused the policeman to a frenzy of direct action.
In a calmer moment he might have been quelled by the
protruding green-grey eyes that were looking at him with
such quiet austerity: but now they had no terrors for
him.

“You're a deputy,’’ he repeated. ‘‘ You know what
that means, don’t you, dumb-bell? I’m an officer of the
Law and I appoint you my deputy.”’

‘“‘T have no desire to be a deputy,”’ said the other with
the cold sub-tinkle in his voice which had once made the
younger son of a marquess resign from his clubs and go
to Uganda.

It was wasted on Officer Garroway. The man was
berserk.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 288

“That’s all right what you desire and don’t desire.
I’ve made you a deputy, and you'll be one or go up the
river for resisting an officer of the Law, besides getting
a dot over the bean with this stick that’ll make you wish
you hadn’t. Now then?’

“The position being such as you have outlined,” said
the butler with dignity, ‘“‘I have no alternative but to
comply with your wishes.”

‘‘What’s your name?”’

‘‘ Rupert Antony Ferris.”

** Where do you live? ”’

“IT am in the employment of Mrs. Sigsbee H. Wad-
dington, at present residing at Hempstead, Long Island.”

“Well, I’ve got two birds in here that are wanted at
headquarters, see? I’m locking them in.”’ Officer Gar-
roway slammed the door and turned the key. ‘‘ Now, all
you have to do is to stand on guard till I come back.
Not much to ask, is it ? ”’

““The task appears to be well within the scope of my
powers, and I shall endeavour to fulfil it faithfully.”

‘“‘ Then go to it,’’ said Officer Garroway.

Ferris stood with his back to the sleeping-porch, looking
at the moon with a touch of wistfulness. Moonlight nights
always made him a little home-sick, for Brangmarley Hall
had been at its best on such occasions. How often had
he, then a careless, light-hearted footman, watched the
moonbeams reflected on the waters of the moat and, with
all the little sounds of the English country whispering in
his ear, pondered idly on what would win the two o'clock
race at Ally Pally next day. Happy days! Happy days!

The sound of some one murmuring his name brought his
wandering thoughts back to the workaday world. He
looked about him with interest, which deepened as he saw
that he had apparently got the roof to himself.

“* Ferris | ”’

The butler was a man who never permitted himself
to be surprised, but he was conscious now of something
not unlike that emotion. Disembodied voices which whis-

284 THE SMALL BACHELOR

pered his name were new in his expericnce. It could
hardly be one of the two birds in the sleeping-porch that
was speaking, for they were behind concrete walls and
a solid door, and would have had to raise their voices far
louder to make themselves heard.

‘* Ferris |”’

Possibly an angel, thought the butler: and was turning
his mind to other things when he perceived that in the
wall by which he stood there was a small window high
up in the concrete. So {t was one of the birds, after
all. Scarcely had he made the discovery of the window
when the voice spoke again, and so distinctly this time that
he was able to recognize it as that of his employer, Mrs.
Sigsbee H. Waddington.

** Ferris | ”’

** Madam ? ”’ said Ferris.

“It is I, Ferris—Mrs, Waddington.”

‘Very good, madam.”

‘* What did you say ? Comecloser. I can’t hear you.”

The butler, though not a man who did this sort of thing
as a general rule, indulgently stretched a point and stood
on tip-toe. He advanced his mouth towards the hole in
the wall and repeated his remark.

‘‘T said ‘ Very good, madam ’,’’ explained this modern
Pyramus.

‘““Oh? Well, be quick, Ferris.”

“‘ Quick, madam ? ”’

‘Be quick and let us out.”

‘““ You wish me to release you, madam ? ”’

Yes.”

“H’m!”’

“What did you say?”

The butler, who had found the strain of standing on
tip-toe a little hard on his fallen arches, reared himself up
once more.

“IT said ‘H’m![’ madam.”

““What did he say?” asked the voice of Lord
Hunstanton.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 285

** He said “ H’m!’’’ replied the voice of Mrs, Waddington.

ee Why ? a8

‘“‘How should I know? I believe the man has been
drinking.”’

‘‘ Let me talk to the fellow,” said Lord Hunstanton.

There was a pause. Then a male understudy took up
Thisbe’s portion of the performance.

c¢ Hi | a)

‘Sir? ’’ said Ferris.

‘‘You out there, what’s your name... .”

‘My name is—and has always been—Ferris, sir.”

‘‘ Well, then, Ferris, listen to me and understand that
I’m not the sort of man to stand any dashed nonsense
or anything like that of any description whatsoever. Why,
when this dear, good lady told you to let us out, did you
reply ‘H’m!’? Answer me that—yes or no.”

The butler raised himself on tip-toe again.

‘‘The ejaculation was intended to convey doubt, your
lordship.”

‘‘Doubt ? What about ?”’

‘*‘ As to whether I could see my way to letting you out,
your lordship.”’

‘Don’t be a silly idiot. It’s not so dark as all that.”

‘‘T was alluding to the difficulties confronting me as
the result of the peculiar position in which I find myself
situated, your lordship.”

‘What did he say?” asked the voice of Mrs.
Waddington. )

‘“‘ Something about his peculiar position.”

** Why is he in a peculiar position ? ”’

“‘Ah! There you have me.”

“‘ Let me talk to the man.”

There was a scuffling noise, followed by a heavy fall
and a plaintive cry from a female in distress.

‘“‘T knew that chair would break if you stood on it,”
said Lord Hunstanton. ‘‘I wish I could have had a small
bet on that chair breaking if you stood on it.”

‘‘ Wheel the bed under the window,” replied the indom-

286 THE SMALL BACHELOR

itable woman beside him. She had lost an inch of skin
from her right ankle, but her hat was still in the ring.

A grating noise proclaimed the shifting of the bed.
There was a creak of springs beneath a heavy weight.
The window, in its capacity of loud speaker, announced
Mrs. Waddington calling.

“ Ferris | ”’

‘* Madam ? ”

‘What doyoumean? Whyis your position peculiar P ”’

‘‘ Because I am a deputy, madam.”

‘What does that matter? ”’

“TI represent the Law, madam.”

*‘The what ?’’ asked Lord Hunstanton.

“‘The Law,’’ said Mrs. Waddington. ‘‘He says he
represents the Law.”

‘* Let me speak to the blighter !”’

There was another interval, which the butler employed
in massaging his aching insteps.

(¢ Hi | a”

“Your lordship ? ”’

“‘ What’s all this rot about your representing the Law ? ”’

“I was placed in a position of trust by the officer who
has recently left us. He instructed me to guard your
lordship and Mrs. Waddington and to see that you did
not effect your escape.”’

“‘ But, Ferris, try not to be more of an ass than you
can help. Pull yourself together and use your intel-
ligence You surely don’t suppose that Mrs. Waddington
and I have done anything wrong ? ”’

‘It is not my place to speculate on the point which
you have raised, your lordship.”

‘‘ Listen, Ferris. Let’s get down to the stern, practical
side of this business. If the old feudal spirit hadn’t died
out completely, you’d do a little thing like letting us out
of this place for the pure love of service, if you know what
I mean. But, seeing that we live in a commercial age,
what’s the figure ? ”’

‘eAre you suggesting that I should accept a bribe, your

THE SMALL BACHELOR 287

lordship? Am I to understand that you propose that,
in return for money, I should betray my trust ? ”’

“Yes. How much?”

“How much has your lordship got ?”’

“What did he say ?’’ asked Mrs. Waddington.

“He asked how much we'd got.”

** How much what? ’”’

** Money.”

“He wishes to extort money from us?”

*‘That’s what it sounded like.”

“Let me speak to the man.”’

Mrs. Waddington came to the window.

‘* Ferris.”

‘“‘ Madam ? ”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”’

‘Yes, madam.”

‘*'Your behaviour surprises and revolts me.”

“Very good, madam.”’

‘* You cease from this moment to be in my employment.”

‘* Just as you desire, madam.”

Mrs. Waddington retired for a brief consultation with
her companion.

‘‘ Ferris,’’ she said, returning to the window.

“* Madam ?”’

‘‘ Here is all the money we have,—two hundred and
fifteen dollars.”’

‘It will be ample, madam.”

‘* Then kindly make haste and unlock this door.”

“Very good, madam.”

Mrs. Waddington waited, chafing. The moments passed.

** Madam.”

‘* Well, what is it now? ”’

‘“‘T regret to have to inform you, madam,” said Ferris
respectfully, ‘‘ that, when the policeman went away, he
took the key with him.”’

16

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T had taken George some considerable time to establish
| connection with the Waddington home at Hempstead :

but he had done it at last, only to be informed that
Molly did not appear to be on the premises. She had
driven up in her two-seater, a Swedish voice gave him
to understand, but after remaining in the house a short
while had driven off again.

‘Fine !’’ said George, as his informant was beginning
to relapse into her native tongue.

A yeasty feeling of pleasure and good-will towards his
species filled him as he hung up the receiver. If Molly
had started back to New York, he might expect to see her
at any moment now. His heart swelled: and the fact
that he was in the unfortunate position of being a fugitive
from justice and the additional fact that the bloodhound
of the Law most interested in his movements was pro-
bably somewhere very close at hand, entirely escaped him.
Abandoning the caution which should have been the first
thought of one situated as he was, he burst into jovial song.

‘Hey, Pinch!”

George, who had been climbing towards a high note,
came back to earth again, chilled and apprehensive. His
first impulse was to dash for his bedroom and hide under
the bed—a thing which he knew himself to be good at.
Then his intelligence asserted itself and panic waned.
Only one man of his acquaintance could have addressed
him as ‘ Hey, Pinch!’

“Is that Mr. Waddington ? ’”’ he murmured, opening the
door of the sitting-room and peering in.

“Sure it’s Mr. Waddington.”’ The reek of a lively
young cigar assailed George’s nostrils. ‘‘ Don’t you have
any lights in this joint? ”’

238

THE SMALL BACHELOR 289

‘* Are there any policemen about ? ’’ asked George in a
conspiratorial undertone.

‘‘There’s one policeman down in young Beamish’s
apartment,’ replied Mr. Waddington with a fruity chuckle.
‘* He’s just sold me all his holdings in the Finer and Better
Motion Picture Company of Hollywood, Cal., for three
hundred smackers: and I’ve come here to celebrate.
Set up the drinks,’’ said Mr. Waddington, who was plainly
in as festive a mood as a man can be without actually
breaking up the furniture.

George switched on the light. If the enemy was in as
distant a spot as Hamilton Beamish’s apartment, prudence
might be relaxed.

‘““’At’s right,” said Mr. Waddington, welcoming the
illumination. He was leaning against a book-shelf with
his hat on the back of his head and a cigar between his
lips. His eyes were sparkling with an almost human
intelligence. ‘‘I’ve got a smart business head, Pinch,”
he said, shooting the cigar from due east to due west
with a single movement of his upper lip. ‘I’m the guy
with the big brain.”

Although all the data which he had been able to accu-
mulate in the course of their acquaintanceship went
directly to prove the opposite, George was not inclined to
combat the statement. He had weightier matters to
occupy him than an academic discussion of the mentality
of this poor fish.

“*T found that girl,’’ he said.

““What girl? ”’

‘‘The girl who stole the necklace. And I’ve got the
necklace.”’

He had selected a subject that gripped. Mr. Wadding-
ton ceased to contemplate the smartness of his business
head and became interested. His eyes widened, and he
blew out a puff of poison-gas.

““You don’t say!”

“* Here it is.”’

“‘Gimme!’’ said Mr. Waddington.

240 THE SMALL BACHELOR

George dangled the necklace undecidedly.

‘IT think I ought to hand it over to Molly.”

‘* You'll hand it over to me,’”’ said Mr. Waddington with
decision. ‘‘I’m the head of the family, and from now
on I act as such. Too long, Pinch, have I allowed myself
to be trampled beneath the iron heel and generally kicked
in the face with spiked shoes, if you get my meaning. I
now assert myself. Starting from to-day and onward
through the years till my friends and relatives gather
about my bier and whisper ‘ Doesn’t he look peaceful,’
what I say goes. Give me that necklace. I intend to
have it reset or something. Either that, or I shall sell it
and give Molly the proceeds. In any case, and be that as
it may, gimme that necklace!’

George gave it him. There was a strange new atmos-
phere of authority about Sigsbee H. to-night that made
one give him things when he asked for them. He had
the air of a man whom somebody has been feeding meat.

“Pinch,” said Mr. Waddington.

“Finch,” said George.

“* George,’ said a voice at the window, speaking with a
startling abruptness which caused Mr. Waddington to
jerk his cigar into his eye.

A wave of emotion poured over George.

“Molly! Is that you?”

“Yes, darling. Here I am.”

““ How quick you’ve been.”

“I hurried.’’

“ Though it seems hours since you went away.”

““ Does it really, precious ? ”’

Mr. Waddington was still shaken.

“If I had been told that any daughter of mine would
come and bark at me from behind like that,’’ he said
querulously, ‘I would not have believed it.”

“Oh, father! There you are. I didn’t see you.”

“ There,” said Mr. Waddington, “‘is right. You nearly
ecared the top of my head off.”

“I’m sorry.”

THE SMALL BACHELOR 241

““Too late to be sorry now,” said Mr. Waddington
moodily. ‘‘ You’ve gone and spoiled the best ten-cent
cigar in Hempstead.”’

He eyed the remains sadly: and, throwing them away,
selected another from his upper waistcoat pocket and bit
the end off.

‘“‘Molly, my angel,’’ said George vibrantly, ‘‘ fancy you
really being with me once more!”’

“Yes, Georgie, darling. And what I wanted to say
was, I believe there’s somebody in your sleeping-porch.”

“What 1”

*T’m sure I heard voices.”

Come right down to it, and there is no instinct so deeply
rooted in the nature of Man as the respect for property
—his own property, that is to say. And just as the
mildest dog will tackle bloodhounds in defence of its
own back-yard, so will the veriest of human worms turn
if attacked in his capacity of householder. The news
that there was somebody in his sleeping-porch caused
George to seethe with pique and indignation. It seemed
to him that the entire population of New York had come
to look on his sleeping-porch as a public resort. No
sooner had he ejected one batch of visitors than another
took their place.

With a wordless exclamation he rushed out upon the
roof, closely followed by Molly and her father. Molly
was afraid he would get hurt. Sigsbee H. was afraid he
would not. It had been a big night for Sigsbee H. Wad-
dington, and he did not want it to end tamely.

‘‘Have your gun ready,” advised Sigsbee H., keeping
well in the rear, ‘‘ and don’t fire till you see the whites of
their eyes.”

George reached the door of the sleeping-porch, and smote
it a lusty blow.

“Hil’’ he cried. He twisted the handle. ‘‘ Good
heavens, it’s locked.”’

From the upper window, softened by distance, came a
pleading voice.

242 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘I say! I say! I say!’’ To Lord Hunstanton the
beating on the door had sounded like the first guns of a
relieving army. He felt like the girl who heard the pipers
skirling as they marched on beleagured Lucknow. ‘I
say, whoever you are, dear old soul, let us out, would you
mind.”’

George ground his teeth.

‘What do you mean—whoever you are? I’m George
Finch, and that sleeping-porch belongs to me.”’

‘‘Good old George! Hunstanton speaking. Let us
out, George, old top, like the sportsman you are!’”’

‘““What are you doing in there? ’”’

‘‘ A policeman locked usin. And a blighter of a butler,
after promising to undo the door, told some thin story
about not being able to find the key and legged it with
all our available assets. So play the man, dear old George,
and blessings will reward you. Also and moreover, by
acting promptly you will save the life of my dear good
friend and hostess here, who has been hiccoughing for some
little time and is, I rather fancy, on the point of hysterics.’’

‘‘What are you talking about? ”’

‘“‘Mrs. Waddington.”’

‘‘Is Mrs. Waddington in there with you?”

‘‘Is she not, laddie! ”’

George drew in his breath sharply.

‘“‘ Mother,’’ he said reproachfully, through the keyhole.
‘*T had not expected this.”’

Sigsbee H. Waddington uttered a fearful cry.

‘““My wife! In there! With a man with a toothbrush
moustache! Let me talk to them!”’

‘“Who was that ?’’ asked Lord Hunstanton.

‘Mr, Waddington,” replied George. ‘‘ Who was that?”
he said, aS a scream rent the alr.

‘‘Mrs, Waddington. I say, George, old man,’’ queried his
lordship anxiously, ‘‘ what’s the precedure when a woman
starts turning blue and making little bubbling noises ? ’’

Sigsbee H., finding that a man of his stature could not
hope to speak to any advantage through the window

THE SMALL BACHELOR 248

unless he stood on something, had darted across the roof
and was now returning with one of the potted shrubs in
his arms. The wildness of his eyes and the fact that even
in this supreme moment he had gone on puffing at his
cigar gave him a striking resemblance to a fire-breathing
dragon. He bumped the tub down and, like a man who
rises on stepping-stones of his dead self to higher things,
elevated himself upon it.

This brought him nicely within range of the window and
enabled him to push Lord Hunstanton in the face—which
was all to the good. His lordship staggered back, leaving
the way clear for the injured man to gaze upon his erring
wife.

‘““Hal’’ said Sigsbee H. Waddington.

“‘T can explain everything, Sigsbee | ”’

Mr. Waddington snorted.

“* Nerve,” he said, “‘ in its proper place and when there’s
not too much of it, I admire. But when a woman has
the crust to disparage the morals of one of the finest
young fellows who ever came out of the golden West
and then I happen to pop into New York on important
business and find her closeted with a man with a tooth-
brush moustache and she has the audacity to say she can
explain everything .. .”’

Here Mr. Waddington paused to take in breath.

‘* Sigsbee | ”’

“It’s living in this soul-destroying East that does it,’
proceeded Mr. Waddington, having re-filled his thoracic
cavities. ‘‘If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred
times, that...”

‘“‘ But, Sigsbee, I couldn’t help it. It’s quite true what
Lord Hunstanton was saying. A policeman locked us
in.”

‘‘What were you doing up here, anyway ?”’

There was a brief silence within.

‘T came to see what that Finch was doing. And I
heard him in here, talking to an abandoned creature.”’

Mr. Waddington directed a questioning gaze at George,

244 THE SMALL BACHELOR

‘“* Have you been talking to any abandoned creatures
to-night ? ”’

‘‘Of course he hasn’t,’’ cried Molly indignantly.

‘‘T have spoken with no one of the opposite sex,”’ said
George with dignity, ‘‘ except the girl who stole the neck-
lace. And that was a purely business discussion which
would not have brought a blush to the cheek of the sternest
critic. JI said ‘ Hand over that necklace ! ’ and she handed
it over, and then her husband came and took her away.”

‘‘You hear? ’’ said Mr. Waddington.

** No, I don’t,’’ said Mrs. Waddington.

‘Well, take it from me that this splendid young man
from the West is as pure as driven snow. So now let’s
hear from you once more. Why did the policeman lock
you in?”

‘‘ We had a misunderstanding.”

“How?”

‘Well, I—er—happened to throw a little pepper in his
face.”’

‘“‘ Sweet artichokes of Jerusalem! Why?”

‘‘He found me in Mr. Finch’s apartment and wanted
to arrest me.”’

Mr. Waddington’s voice grew cold and grim.

““Indeed ?’”’ he said. ‘‘ Well, this finishes it! If you
can’t live in the East without spending your time throwing
pepper at policemen, you'll come straight out with me to
the West before you start attacking them with hatchets.
That is my final and unalterable decision. Come West,
woman, where hearts are pure, and there try to start a
new life.’’

“IT will, Sigsbee, I will.”

“You bet your permanent henna hair-wash you will!”

‘‘T’0 buy the transportation to-morrow.”

‘“‘No, sir!’’ Mr. Waddington with a grand gesture
nearly overbalanced the tub on which he stood. ‘I will
buy the transportation to-morrow. You will be interested
to learn that, owing to commercial transactions resulting
from the possession of a smart business head, I am now

THE SMALL BACHELOR 245

once more an exceedingly wealthy man and able to buy
all the transportation this family requires and to run
this family as it should be run. I’m the big noise now.
Yes, me—Sigsbee Horatio. .. .”” The tub tilted sideways,
and the speaker staggered into the arms of Officer Garroway,
who had come up to the roof to see how his prisoners were
getting on and was surprised to find himself plunged into
the middle of what appeared to be a debating society.
Waddington,”’ concluded Sigsbee H.

The policeman eyed him coldly. The fever of dislike
which he had felt towards this man had passed, but he could
never look on him asa friend. Moreover, Mr. Waddington,
descending from the tub, had stamped heavily on his
right foot, almost the only portion of his anatomy which
had up till then come unscathed through the adventures
of the night.

““'What’s all this ? ’’ inquired Officer Garroway.

His eye fell upon George: and he uttered that low,
sinister growl which is heard only from the throats of
leopards seeking their prey, tigers about to give battle,
and New York policemen who come unexpectedly upon
men who have thrown table-cloths over them and hit
them in the eye.

‘‘So there you are!’’ said Officer Garroway.

He poised his night-stick in his hand, and moved
softly forward. Molly flung herself in his path with a
cry.
66 Stop | .3

‘‘Miss,’’ said the policeman, courteously as was his
wont in the presence of the sex. ‘‘ Oblige me by getting
to hell out of here.”’

‘“‘ Garroway !”’

The policeman wheeled sharply. Only one man in the
world would have been able to check his dreadful designs
at that moment, and that man had now joined the group.
Clad in a sweater and a pair of running-shorts, Hamilton
Beamish made a strangely dignified and picturesque
figure as he stood there with the moonlight glinting on

246 THE SMALL BACHELOR

his horn-rimmed spectacles. He wore soft shoes with
rubber soles, and he was carrying a pair of dumb-bells.
Hamilton Beamish was a man who lived by schedule:
and not all that he had passed through that day could
blur his mind to the fact that this was the hour at which
he did his before-retiring dumb-bell exercises,

“What is the trouble, Garroway ? ”’

‘* Well, Mr. Beamish .. .”

Confused voices interrupted him.

““ He was trying to murder George.”’

“‘ He’s got my wife locked up in this room.”

‘‘ The brute! ”’

‘‘Darned fresh guy!”’

‘‘ George didn’t do a thing to him.”

‘*‘My wife only threw a little pepper in his face.”

Hamilton Beamish raised a compelling dumb-bell.

‘Please, please! Garroway, state your case.”’

He listened attentively.

‘Unlock that door,’ he said, when all was told.

The policeman unlocked the door. Mrs. Waddington,
followed by Lord Hunstanton, emerged. Lord Hunstanton
eyed Mr. Waddington warily, and sidled with an air of
carelessness towards the stairway. Accelerating his pro-
gress as he neared the door, he vanished abruptly. Lord
Hunstanton was a well-bred man who hated a fuss: and
every instinct told him that this was one. He was better
elsewhere, he decided.

‘‘Stop that man!” ejaculated Officer Garroway. He
turned back, baffled, with a darkening brow. ‘‘ Now he’s
gone!’’ he said sombrely. ‘‘ And he was wanted up in
Syracuse.”’

Sigsbee H. Waddington shook his head. He was not
fond of that town, but he had a fair mind.

‘‘ Even in Syracuse,’’ he said, “‘ they wouldn’t want a
man like that.”’

“It was Willie the Dude, and I was going to take him
to the station-house.”’

“You are mistaken, Garroway,’’said Hamilton Beamish.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 247

7 That was Lord Hunstanton, a personal acquaintance of
mine,”’

‘““'You knew him, Mr, Beamish ? ”’

“‘ Quite.”’

“Do you know her ? ”’ asked the policeman, pointing to
Mrs. Waddington.

“ Intimately.”’

“‘ And him ? ”’ said Officer Garroway, indicating George.

“* He is one of my best friends.”

The policeman heaved a dreary sigh. He relapsed into
silence, baffled.

“The whole affair,’”” said Hamilton Beamish, ‘‘ appears
to have been due to a foolish misunderstanding. This
lady, Garroway, is the step-mother of this young lady here,
to whom Mr. Finch should have been married to-day.
There was some little trouble, I understand from Mr.
Waddington, and she was left with the impression that
Mr. Finch’s morals were not all they should have been.
Later, facts which came to light convinced her of her error,
and she hastened to New York to seek Mr. Finch out and
tell him that all was well and that the marriage would
proceed with her full approval. That is correct, Mrs.
Waddington ? ”’

Mrs. Waddington gulped. For a moment her eye
seemed about to assume its well-known expression of a
belligerent fish. But her spirit was broken. She was not
the woman she had been. She had lost the old form.

““Yes.... Yes.... That is to say... I mean,
yes,” she replied huskily.

“You called at Mr. Finch’s apartment with no other
motive than to tell him this? ”’

‘None. ... Or, rather... No, none.”

**In fact, to put the thing in a nutshell, you wished to
find your future son-in-law and fold him in a mother-in-
law’s embrace. Am I right?”

This time the pause before Mrs. Waddington found
herself able to reply was so marked and the look she
directed at George so full of meaning that the latter,

248 THE SMALL BACHELOR

always sensitive, could not but wonder whether in refrain-
ing from punching her on the nose he was not neglecting
his duty as a man and a citizen. She gazed at him long
and lingeringly. Then she spoke.

“Quite right,’”’ she said huskily.

“Excellent,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘So you see,
Garroway, that Mrs. Waddington’s reason for being in the
apartment where you found her were wholly admirable.
That clears up that point.”

“It doesn’t clear up why she threw pepper in my
face.”’

Hamilton Beamish nodded.

‘There, Garroway,’’ he said, ‘‘ you have put your
finger on the one aspect of Mrs. Waddington’s behaviour
which was not completely unexceptionable. As regards
the pepper, you have, it seems to me, legitimate cause for
pique and, indeed, solid grounds for an action for assault
and battery. But Mrs. Waddington is a reasonable woman,
and will, no doubt, be willing to settle this little matter
in a way acceptable to all parties.”’

“* T will pay him whatever he wants,”’ cried the reasonable
woman. ‘Anything, anything! ’”’

Cai Hey ! t

It was the voice of Sigsbee H. He stood there, forceful
and dominant. His cigar had gone out, and he was
chewing the dry remains aggressively.

“Say, listen!’’ said Sigsbee H. Waddington. “If
there’s any bribing of the police to be done, it’s my place
to do it, as the head of the family. Look me up at my
little place at Hempstead to-morrow, Gallagher, and we'll
have a talk. You will find me a generous man. Open-
handed. Western.”’

“‘Capital,’’ said Hamilton Beamish. ‘‘So everything
is happily settled.”’

There was not much of Officer Garroway’s face that was
not concealed by the bandage and the steak, but on the
small residuum there appeared a look of doubt and dis-
satisfaction.

THE SMALL BACHELOR 249

“‘ And what about this bird here ? ’’ he asked, indicating
George.

‘‘This individual before me,’’ corrected Hamilton
Beamish. ‘‘ What about him, Garroway ? ”’

“* He soaked me in the eye.”’

“No doubt in a spirit of wholesome fun. Where did
this happen ? ”’

“Down there in the Purple Chicken.”

“Ah! Well, if you knew that restaurant better, you
would understand that that sort of thing is the merest
commonplace of everyday life at the Purple Chicken.
You must overlook it, Garroway.”’

*‘Can’t I push his head down his throat?”

“Certainly not. I cannot have you annoying Mr.
Finch. He is to be married to-morrow, and he is a friend
of mine.”

ae S| ear

‘‘Garroway,”’ said Hamilton Beamish, in a quiet, com-
pelling voice, “‘ Mr. Finch is a friend of mine.”

‘‘ Very well, Mr. Beamish,”’ said the policeman resignedly.

Mrs. Waddington was plucking at her husband’s sleeve.

‘‘ Sigsbee.”’

** Hello?”

‘‘Sigsbee, dear, I’m starving. I have had nothing to
eat since lunch. There is some wonderful soup in there.”

‘“‘Let’s go,” said Sigsbee H. ‘‘ You coming? ”’ he said
to George.

‘“‘T thought of taking Molly off somewhere.”’

‘Oh no, do come with us, George,’’ said Mrs. Wad-
dington winningly. She drew closer to him. ‘“‘ George, {s
it really true that you hit that policeman in the eye?”

** Yes.”

‘* Tell me about it.”’

‘Well, he was trying to arrest me, so J threw a table-
cloth over his head and then plugged him a couple of rather
juicy ones which made him leave go.”

Mrs. Waddington’s eyes glistened. She put her arm
through his. ,

250 THE SMALL BACHELOR

** George,’’ she said, ‘“‘I have misjudged you. I could
wish Molly no better husband.”’

Hamilton Beamish stood in the moonlight, swinging
his dumb-bells. Having done this for awhile, he embarked
on a few simple setting-up exercises. He stood with his
feet some six inches apart, his toes turned slightly out:
then, placing his hands on his hips, thumbs back, bent
slightly forward from the shoulders—not from the hips.
He retracted the lower abdomen, and, holding it retracted,
leaned well over to the left side, contracting the muscles
of the left side forcibly. He kept his legs straight all the
time, his knees stiff. He reversed to right side, and
repeated twenty times—ten right, ten left. This exercise
was done slowly and steadily, without jerking.

‘‘Ah1’’ said Hamilton Beamish, relaxing. ‘‘ Splendid
for the transversalis muscle, that, converting it into a living
belt which girds the loins. Have you ever given con-
sidered thought to the loins, Garroway ? ”

The policeman shook his head.

‘‘Not that I know of,” he said indifferently. ‘‘ I’ve
seen ‘em in the Bronx Zoo.”’

Hamilton Beamish eyed him with concern.

‘* Garroway,”’ he said, “‘ you seem distrait.”’

“‘ Tf that’s how a feller is when he’s been hit and punched
and stepped on and had pepper thrown at him and table-
cloths put over his head I’ve got a swell licence to seem
distrait,’’ replied the policeman bitterly. ‘‘ And on top of
all that, when I thought I had made acop.. .”’

‘‘Brought about an arrest.”’

‘“*.. . brought about an arrest which would have got
me promotion, I find they’re all friends of yours and have
to be allowed to make a clean getaway. That’s what
jars me, Mr. Beamish.”’

Hamilton Beamish patted him on the shoulder.

“‘ Every poet, Garroway, has to learn in suffering before
he can teach in song. Look at Keats! Look at Chatter-
ton!. One of these days you will be thankful that all

THE SMALL BACHELOR 251

this has happened. It will be the making of you Besides,
think of the money you are going to get from Mr.
Waddington to-morrow.”

“I'd give it all for one long, cool drink now.”

““Mr, Garroway.”

The policeman looked up. Molly was standing in the
window.

‘Mr, Garroway,’’ said Molly, ‘‘a most mysterious thing
has happened. Mr. Finch has found two large bottles
of champagne in his cupboard. He can’t think how they
got there, but he says would you care to come in and
examine them and see whether they are good or not.”’

The cloud which had hung about the policeman’s face
passed from it as if beneath some magic spell. His tongue
came slowly out of his mouth and moved lovingly over his
arid lips. His one visible eye gleamed with the light which
never was on land or sea,

‘* Are you with me, Mr. Beamish? ”’ he asked.

“ I precede you, Mr. Garroway,’’ said Hamilton Beamish.

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